THE  LIBRARIES 


A  N  C I E  N  T>-e#&I  S*i4^  I T  Y. 
C0I..C01X. 


OXFORD    TRACTS. 

BY 

ISAAC    TAYLOR, 

AUTHOR  OF  "  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM,"  &c. 


Fas  est  etenim,  ut  prisca  ilia  caelestis  philosophiae  dopnata  processu  tem- 
poris,  excurentur,  limentiir,  poliantur;  sed  nefas  est,  ut  cominutentur;  nefas, 
ut  detruncentur,  ut  mutilentur.  Accipirint  licet  evidentiain,  lucem,  distinc- 
tionemj  sed  retineant,  necesse  est,  plenitudinem,  inlegritateiu,  proprieta- 
tem. — ViNCEXTius  Lirinensis. 


PHILADELPHIA: 
HERMAN   HOOKER, 

CHESTNUT    STREET. 

1840. 


Wm.  S,  Young,  Printeb. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

The  circumstances  of  the  argument, 21 

The  substance  of  the  argument,  and  the  dependence  of  the 

modern  church  upon  the  ancient  church, 40 

A  test  of  the  moral  condition  of  the  ancient  church, 93 

The  third  and  fourth  propositiuns,  and  concluding  remarks,  176 

INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENTS. 

The  subject  of  the  ancient  celibacy  not  to  be  evaded.  A 
principal  element  of  ancient  Christianity,  and  inseparable 
from  the  system, 191 

CONNEXION   OK    THE   ANCIENT   CELIBATE  WITH  THE    NOTIONS 
ENTERTAINED  OF  THE  DIVINE  NATURE. 

The  celibate  the  product  of  gnostic  feeling.  General  prin- 
ciples of  the  oriental  theosophy,  in  its  earlier  and  later 
forms :  opposition  of  the  church  to  the  series  of  gnostic 
heresies,  while  it  imbibed  the  sentiment  of  them.  The 
abstractive  doctrine,  and  the  penitential,  both  admitted 
by  the  ancient  church.  Indications  of  the  gnostic  theo- 
sophy in  Athanasius,  Gregory  Nyssen,  Gregory  Nazian- 
zen,  Basil,  and  Synesius, 206 

CONNEXION    OF    THE    CELIBATE   WITH    THE    NOTIONS    ENTER- 
TAINED OF  THE   SCHE3IE  OF  SALVATION. 

Combination  of  the  Buddhist,  or  abstractive,  and  the  Brah- 
minical,  or  penitential  principles  in  popery — and  in  the 
E 


i^  J..  O  O  ^J 


IV  CONTENTS. 


ascetic  institute  of  the  Nicene  church.  The  consequent 
exclusion  of  evangelical  doctrines  and  feelings.  Citation 
from  Chrysostom — adulatory  style  of  the  fathers.  In- 
stances from  Boethius,  Vincentius,  Origen.  Panegyric 
memoirs  and  epitaphic  orations.  Isidore  j  Life  of  St.  An- 
tony by  Athanasius,  and  eulogy  of  Athanasius  by  Nazi- 
'anzen:  eulogium  of  Cyprian  by  the  same.  Life  of  Cy- 
prian by  his  deacon  Pontius.  Ambrose,  and  his  funeral 
oration  on  the  death  of  his  brother  Satyrus.  Ephrem's 
story  of  the  monk  Abraham  and  Mary.  Chrysostom  on 
the  parable  of  the  ten  virgins,  compared  with  Macarius,    J345 

SOME    SPECIAL    r.IETHODS    OF    ESTIMATING    THE    QUALITY    OF 
THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY. 

The  choice  of  texts.  The  epistolary  style  of  the  Nicene 
writers :  their  choice  of  subjects.  The  mythic  exposition 
of  scripture,  and  Origen's  reason  for  resorting  to  it.  Alle- 
gorical qualities  of  animals — Ambrose  and  the  vulture. 
Chrysostom's  expositions.  Tnie  and  false  perspective 
in  religion,  and  the  admissions  of  the  Oxford  Tract  wri- 
ters concerning  the  slender  evidence  of  church  princi- 
ples. Analysis  of  Chrysostom's  nine  homilies  on  repent- 
ance,      .312 

Protestant  Catholicity, 372 

THE   RULE    OF    KEMGIOUS   CELIBACY,  AS    LAID   DOWN   IN  THE 
NEW  TESTAMENT. 

The  analogous  instance  of  the  rule  of  martyrdom.  Observa- 
tion on  Luke  xx.  35.  Import  of  Matt.  xix.  12,  illustrated 
by  our  Lord's  personal  behaviour,  and  this  compared  with 
that  of  St.  Martin  of  Tours.  Import  of  1  Cor.  vii.  Prac- 
tical comment  of  the  Nicene  monks  upon  the  apostolic 
rule.     Rev.  xiv.  1 — 4  symbolical  not  literal, 377 

THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC   AFOSTACY. 

1  Tim.  iv.  plainly  applicable  to  the  ancient  ascetic  institute. 
Illustrations  of  the  fulfilment  of  the  prediction; 40G 


CONTENTS. 


THE  EXTENT  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE,  AND  THE  SANCTION 
IT  RECEIVED  FROM  THE   NICENE  CHURCH. 

PAGE 

Deriv^ation  of  the  anclioretic  and  monastic  life:  its  general 
characteristics  and  localities.  Testimonies  in  its  favour. 
Methodius,  Lactantius,  council  of  Nice,  and  synods  of 
Ancjra  and  Neocsesarea.  The  Apostolic  Constitutions. 
Eusebius,  Athanasius,  Cyril,  Hilary,  Epiphanius,  Basil, 
Gregory  Naz.,  Ephrem,  Gregory  N3'SS.  Ambrose,  Je- 
rome, Mark,  Rufinus,  Augustine,  Chrysostom,  and  later 
writers, 42Z 

THE  OPPOSITION  MADE  TO  THE  ANCIENT  ASCETICISM. 

The  extent  of  the  opposition  indifferent  to  the  present  ar- 
gument. Indications  of  dissent.  Jovinian  and  Vigilan- 
tius  overpowered  by  Jerome,  Ambrose,  and  Augustine,     449 

MONSERY  AND  MIRACLE. 

The  difference  between  Romish  and  Nicene  legends — Al- 
ban  Butler  and  Jerome ;  life  of  St.  Hilarion 4G7 


MONKERY,  THE  RELIGION  OF   SOUTHERN  EUROPE. 

Permanent  characteristics  of  the  south  of  Europe,  The 
ancient  asceticism  as  related  to  a  disordered  social  condi- 
tion,      474 


MORAL  QUALITY  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE,  AS  IT  AFFECTED 
THE  MONKS   THEMSELVES. 

In  its  principal  elements  Basil's  monastic  life  incompatible 
with  genuine  virtue, 480 

THE  NECESSARY  OPERATION  OF  AN  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE  UPON 
THE  MASS  OF   CHRISTIANS. 

Visible  and  arbitrary  dislinclions  among  Christians,  fatal 
to  piety  and  morals, 497 


VI  CONTENTS. 

THE  INDIRECT  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  MONASTIC  INSTITUTE  UPON 
THE  POSITION  OF  THE  CLERGY. 

PAGE 

The  ascetics  constituted  a  class  to  be  maintained,  a  class 
contributing  to  the  funds  of  the  church,  and  a  class  to  be 
governed, « 508 

THE  DIRECT  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  CELIBATE  UPON  THE 
CLERGY. 

The  progress  of  opinion,  ending  necessarily  in  the  enforced 
celibacy  of  the  clergy.  The  fathers  and  the  inspired  wri- 
ters at  issue  on  this  point, 519 

THE  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE  WITH  RITUAL 
NOTIONS  AND   PRACTICES. 

The  Nicene  sacramental  doctrine  the  consequence  of  the 
condition  of  the  clerical  mind,  and  only  another  expres- 
sion of  the  ascetic  principle.  The  taste  for  the  marvel- 
lous, characteristic  of  the  ascetic  life,  sought  its  gratifica- 
tion in  this  line.  The  rites  of  the  church,  means  of  go- 
vernment. The  present  feeling  at  Rome  concerning 
Oxford  Ti-act  doctrines, 530 

Additional  References  and  Citations, 547 


TO  THE  VERY  REVEREND 

THOMAS    BEWLEY    MONSELL, 

ARCHDEACON  OF  DERRY, 
AND  PRECENTOR  OF  CHRIST's  CHURCH,  DUBLIN. 


My  Dear  Sir  : 

I  am  already  assured  of  your  approval, 
which  has  been  so  kindly  and  warmly  ex- 
pressed, of  my  intention  to  take  part  in  the 
discussions  set  on  foot  by  the  writers  of  the 
Tracts  for  the  Times ;  but  I  am  very  desirous 
to  bespeak,  also,  your  acquiescence  in  the 
particular  course  of  inquiry,  which,  in  this 
first  instance,  I  have  thought  it  best  to  insti- 
tute, and  which  may  not  be  precisely  what 
you  would  have  anticipated. 

I  have,  in  fact,  taken  as  my  motto  on  this 
occasion,  the  advice — Festina  lente;  and  if 
I  appear  to  have  gone  about,  am  yet  per- 
suaded that  I  am  following  a  path  which 


VIU  DEDICATION. 

promises  to  lead  to  a  satisfactory,  and  not 
very  remote  conclusion.  But  I  will  state,  as 
briefly  as  possible,  the  general  views  that 
have  guided  me  in  selecting  the  subjects; 
and  in  arranging  the  plan  of  my  argument. 

Let  me  say,  then,  that  the  mode  of  repel- 
ling the  pretensions  of  the  Romish  church, 
recommended  by  the  writers  of  the  Oxford 
Tracts,  seems  to  me  to  be  at  once  legitimate 
and  conclusiA  e :  it  is,  in  substance,  an  appeal 
from  the  alleged  authority  of  that  church,  to 
a  catholicity  more  catholic,  and  to  an  anti- 
quity more  ancient.  On  this  ground,  British 
protestantism,  or,  let  us  say,  if  the  phrase  be 
preferred,  British  Christianity,  stands  on  a 
rock,  clear  of  all  exception,  and,  so  far  as  re- 
lated to  popery,  is  exempt  from  all  peril. 
Within  the  well-defined  limits  which  it  ob- 
serves, this  line  of  argument  is  equally  sim- 
ple and  irrefragable. 

But  having,  in  this  manner,  made  good  the 
external  defences  of  the  British  episcopal 
church,  when  we  come  to  look  within  the 
enclosure  which  w^e  have  thus  walled  about, 


DEDICATION.  IX 

we  are  instantly  met  by  some  startling  diffi- 
culties, of  another  kind,  and  are  compelled 
to  confess  that,  in  thus  throwing  ourselves 
back  upon  Christian  antiquity,  embarrass- 
ments attend  us  from  which  there  appears 
no  easy  way  of  escape. 

Men  of  calm  minds,  indeed,  are  painfully 
conscious  of  perplexity,  wdiile  treading  the 
fields  of  ancient  Christian  literature;  and  to 
this  feeling  is  added  some  alarm  w^hen  they 
witness  the  fatal  infatuations  w^hich  beset 
those  wdio  loiter  there  after  surrendering 
themselves  to  the  guidance  of  a  fond  anti- 
quarian enthusiasm;  for  such  are  often  seen 
to  yield  their  faith  and  reason  to  illusions  that 
are  not  merely  unsubstantial,  but  in  the  high- 
est deo^ree  dano^erous.  In  truth,  no  notions 
that  have  ever  prevailed  among  well-informed 
men,  can  have  been  more  utterly  destitute 
of  firm  support  than  are  those  which  have 
been  passionately  adhered  to  in  relation  to 
the  pristine  church;  nor  have  any  been  more 
fruitful  sources  of  theological  and  practical 
errors. 

a2 


DEDICATION^ 


The  peculiar  difficulties  that  attend  the 
general  subject  of  ecclesiastical  anticiuity, 
are  not,  however,  obtruded  u^jon  the  notice 
of  the  world,  during  quiescent  periods;  and, 
as  the  documents  \vherein  this  species  of  lore 
is  imbedded  are  accessible  to  few,  and  fami- 
liar to  still  fewer,  as  well  the  instruction  with 
wdiich  they  are  fraught,  as  the  evils  they 
may  generate,  often  remain  latent  for  a  long 
course  of  years,  and,  therefore,  may  ordina- 
rily demand  no  vigilant  regard. 

But  it  is  otherwise  at  particular  moments, 
wdien  the  dormant  antiquarian  zeal  suddenly 
awakens,  and  claims  a  right  of  interference 
with  every  thing  that  is  professed,  believed, 
and  done,  in  the  open  and  active  world.  And 
if,  at  such  a  moment,  this  zeal,  sharpened  by 
the  prejudices  that  are  its  usual  characteris- 
tics, and  animated,  or  even  inflamed,  by  the 
illusions  which  it  engenders,  takes  a  bold 
course,  and  implicates  the  religious  and  civil 
institutions  of  the  country,  there  are  no  limits 
hardly  to  the  perils  to  w^hich  every  thing 
around  us  is  immediately  exposed. 


DEDICATION.  Xl 


This  seems  to  me  precisely  what  the  writers 
of  the  Oxford  Tracts  are  now,  with  the  best 
intentions,  and  with  the  most  devoted  attach- 
ment to  the  episcopal  church,  actually  doing; 
that  is  to  say,  they  are  fearlessly  staking  the 
credit,  the  influence,  and  even  the  very  ex- 
istence of  the  established  church,  upon  the 
soundness  of  notions,  regarding  ancient  Chris- 
tianity, which,  as  I  am  fully  persuaded,  will 
not  endure  an  impartial  examination;  nay, 
which  are  miserably  contradicted  by  abundant 
and  unimpeachable  evidence. 

There  is  surely  reason  enough  then,  for 
those  vrho  rank  themselves  with  the  friends  of 
the  established  episcopal  church,  to  take  the 
alarm,  and  to  follow  closely  the  steps  of  these 
chivalrous  divines.  It  is  possible,  indeed,  and 
not  unlikely,  that  the  grounds  of  the  doctrines 
advocated  by  these  writers  may  insensibly 
be  shifted;  and  that,  finding  their  early  as- 
sumptions to  be  utterly  untenable,  they  may 
move  off  to  a  better  chosen  position.  But 
even  if  it  were  so,  the  necessity  would  not  be 
the  less  urgent  for  exploring  that  first  chosen 
ground.     In  a  word,  the  time  is  now  mani- 


Xll  DEDICATION. 

festly  come  when  the  Christian  community, 
at  large,  must  be  thoroughly  and  authenti- 
cally informed  concerning  the  spiritual,  and 
the  moral  condition  of  the  church  during  that 
morning  hour  of  its  existence,  which,  too 
easily  alas!  has  been  surrounded  with  attri- 
butes of  celestial  splendour,  dignity,  and  pu- 
rity. 

To  collect  and  diffuse  this  now  indispen- 
sable information,  is  then  the  task  I  have 
undertaken;  yet  neither  a  very  easy  one,  it 
must  be  granted,  nor  exempt  from  an  invidi- 
ous aspect.  To  dissipate  fond  dreams  may  be 
a  friendly  and  useful,  but  is  never  an  ac- 
ceptable office.  No  one,  I  presume,  will 
imagine  that  there  remain  to  be  adduced  facts, 
or  indications  of  facts,  not  already  well  known 
to  those  who  are  conversant  with  the  origi- 
nal documents  of  ecclesiastical  antiquity. 
But  it  is  nevertheless  certain,  and  the  course 
of  the  present  controversy  has  strikingly 
shown  it  to  be  so,  that,  what  is  familiar  to  a 
few,  may  be  altogether  unsurmised  by  the 
mass,  even  of  well-informed  persons.  Our 
modern  church  hii=Ptories  scarcely  lift  a  cor- 


DEDICATION. 


ner  of  the  veil  that  hides  from  us  the  inner 
recesses  of  the  ancient  church.  And  the 
fathers  may  be  looked  into,  here  and  there, 
without  a  suspicion  being  awakened  of  a 
state  of  things  which  a  more  searching  ex- 
amination brings  to  light. 

In  commencing,  then,  these  necessary  re- 
searches, the  immediate  intention  of  which  is 
not  so  much  to  controvert  the  particular  prin- 
ciples or  practices  now  under  discussion,  as  to 
lay  open  the  real  condition,  moral,  spiritual, 
and  ecclesiastical,  of  the  ancient  church,  I  have 
selected  that  one  theme  which,  as  I  am  fully 
persuaded,  is  better  adapted  than  any  other 
to  answer  the  purpose  of  dissipating  many 
illusions,  and  of  generating  a  feeling  of  cau- 
tion in  the  minds  of  those  who  may  just  have 
given  in,  or  may  be  on  the  point  of  giving  in, 
their  submission  to  the  Oxford  doctrines. 
Such,  and  I  believe  the  number  is  now  not 
small,  I  would  here  respectfully  advise  to  sus- 
pend, a  little,  their  judgment  on  the  questions 
in  hand,  imtil  they  may  have  considered  the 
evidence  which  I  shall  have  to  produce. 

As  to  yourself,  my  dear  sir,  you  will  not 


XiV  DEDICATION. 

imagine  that  I  am  presuming  to  inform  you 
of  what  you  are  not  already  acquainted  with; 
and  yet  it  is  possible  that  the  light  in  which 
I  have  placed  some  of  these  well-known  facts, 
may  seem  to  you  new,  and  such  as  to  deserve 
your  regard.  You  will  perceive  that,  while 
a  single  class  of  objects  is  before  me,  I  have 
kept  a  double  purpose  alw^ays  in  view,  name- 
ly, in  the  first  instance,  to  loosen  a  little  that 
antiquarian  enthusiasm  which  is  putting  every 
thing  dear  to  us  in  peril;  and,  in  the  second 
place,  to  open  a  path  w^hereon  afresh  assault 
may  be  made  upon  the  errors  of  the  papacy. 

You  will  see  that,  as  a  preliminary  to  the 
general  argument,  I  have  taken  some  pains 
to  define  and  affirm,  what  some  too  much 
overlook — the  dependence  of  the  modern 
church  upon  the  ancient  church,  lest,  in  les- 
sening a  little  the  credit  of  the  latter,  I  should 
seem  to  favour  an  ultra-protestant  prejudice, 
the  prevalence  of  w^iich  has,  in  fact,  afford- 
ed a  handle  to  the  Oxford  Tract  waiters. 

And  now,  my  dear  sir,  will  you  indulge 
me  a  moment  while  I  make  good  my  per- 
sonal plea  to  be  listened  to  in  the  present  con- 


DEDICATION.  XV 

troversy  ? — It  will  be  granted  then,  that,  what- 
ever course  this  w^ide  discussion  may  take,  it 
has,  in  all  its  branches,  so  intimate  a  con- 
nexion with  ecclesiastical  antiquity,  as  that 
it  must,  for  the  most  part,  be  left  in  the  hands 
of  those  who  have  happened  to  acquire  some 
familiarity  with  this  branch  of  learning,  and 
who,  moreover,  possess  the  indispensable  ad- 
vantage of  actually  having,  under  their  hands, 
the  body  of  ancient  ecclesiastical  literature. 
But  these  conditions  confine,  within  rather 
narrow  limits,  the  choice  which  the  religious 
public  might  make  (among  those,  already 
known  to  it  as  writers)  of  any  to  stand  for- 
w^ard  as  qualified  to  deal  with  the  general 
subject.  Then  again,  among  such,  few  as 
they  may  be,  some  have  already  ranged  them- 
selves on  the  side  of  the  Oxford  writers;  and 
some,  perhaps,  would  admit  themselves  to  be 
altogether  disinclined  to  the  task  of  dealing 
severely,  with  their  favourite  authors. 

On  these  grounds,  then,  as  actually  possess- 
ing the  Greek  and  Latin  church  writers,  and 
as  bein^,  in  some  degree,  used  to  their  com- 


XVI  DEDICATION. 


pany,  and  moreover,  as  exempt,  in  the  most 
complete  manner,  from  the  antiquarian  en- 
thusiasm, I  have  felt  as  if  I  might,  without 
culpable  presumption,  take  a  part  in  the  great 
controversy  of  the  day. 

And  farther,  as  this  controversy  affects,  in 
a  peculiar  manner,  the  welfare  of  the  esta- 
blished episcopal  chinxh,  it  seems  as  if  it 
should  be  demanded  of  those  who  engage  in 
it,  that  they  can  profess  a  firm  conviction  in 
favour  of  the  principle  of  religious  establish- 
ments, and  of  episcopacy;  as  well  as  a  cor- 
dial approval  of  liturgical  worship,  and  spe- 
cifically, of  that  of  the  established  church. 
On  this  ground,  then,  my  deliberate  opinions 
are  such  as  to  allow  of  my  fairly  entering 
the  lists. 

There  is,  however,  yet  a  ground  on  which 
I  feel  that  a  rather  peculiar  advantage,  in  re- 
lation to  such  a  controversy,  belongs  to  me; 
and  it  is  the  circumstance  of  my  personal  in- 
dependence of  the  established  church,  and  of 
my  absolute  exemption  from  the  influence  of 
any  indirect  motive  for  thinking,  or  for  pro- 


DfiDICAtlON.  XVll 

fessing,  thus  or  thus,  in  any  question  affect- 
ing its  credit  and  welfare.  As  a  layman,  I 
have  no  secular  interests  at  stake  in  ecclesi- 
astical questions.  I  have  nothing  but  truth 
to  care  for.  And,  moreover,  my  actual  con- 
nexion, by  education,  and  otherwise,  with 
dissenters,  may  be  accepted  as  giving  to  my 
decisive  opinion  in  favour  of  the  established 
church,  the  value,  whether  more  or  less,  that 
may  attach  to  principles  that  have  resulted 
altogether  from  serious  reflection.  And  I  will 
here  take  leave  to  remind  you,  that,  in  de- 
claring myself  some  years  ago  on  this  side, 
I  did  so  with  a  freedom  of  remark,  in  regard 
to  the  church,  which  precluded  my  winning 
any  favour  from  its  stanch  adherents,  or 
public  champions.  In  fact,  and  I  hope  you 
will  allow  me  on  this  occasion  to  make  the 
profession,  my  convictions,  on  this  subject, 
have  been  so  powerful  and  so  serious,  as  to 
lead  me  to  put  out  of  view  every  personal 
and  secondary  consideration. 

None  will  imagine,  my  dear  sir,  that,  in 
addressing  these  pages  to  you,  I  have,  in  any 
way,  compromised  your  personal  or  profes- 


XX  DEDICATION. 


and  vehemently  opposed  one  to  the  other. 
Soon  there  will  be  no  middle  ground  left; 
and  every  man,  and  especially  every  clergy- 
man, will  be  compelled  to  make  his  choice 
between  the  two.  What  practical  decision 
can  be  more  momentous,  or  demand  more 
deliberation  and  impartial  research  ? 

I  indulge  the  hope,  then,  my  dear  sir,  that 
I  shall  be  able  to  afford  some  aid  to  those, 
especially  among  the  younger  clergy,  w^ho 
may  actually  be  halting  between  the  two 
opinions ;  and  I  well  know  that,  w^hile  giving 
myself  to  my  laborious  task,  I  shall  have  the 
benefit  of  your  cordial  good  wishes  and  pray- 
ers that  that  aid  and  blessing  may  be  afforded 
me,  apart  from  which,  no  endeavours  can  be 
fruitful  of  good. 

It  is,  my  dear  sir,  with  every  sentiment  of 
respect  and  esteem,  that  I  subscribe  myself 
yours, 

THE  AUTHOR. 


Stanford  Rivkrs, 
Feb.  20,  1839. 


ANCIENT   CHRISTIANITY, 

Slc.  (fee. 

The  great  questions  agitated  but  not  determined  three 
hundred  years  ago,  are  now  coining  on  to  be  discussed, 
and  under  circumstances  as  auspicious  altogetlier  as  they 
were  lately  unexpected.  The  reproach  of  the  reforma- 
tion, that  it  did  not  fully  ascertain  its  own  principles,  as 
well  as  the  opprobrium  of  the  church  in  later  times,  that 
little  or  nothing  has  been  amended  since  Luiher,  Cran- 
mer,  and  Knox  went  to  their  rest,  are  now,  at  last,  very 
likely  to  be  removed. 

"VVliile  many  are  looking  with  terror  at  the  unchecked 
spread  of  Romanism  around  the  English  ciiurcii,  and 
with  alarm  at  the  prevalence  of  opinions  within  its  most 
sacred  precincts  which  apparently  contravene  the  hbours 
of  the  reformers,  there  is,  as  I  tliink,  room  to  admit  a 
very  different  feeling  in  relation  to  these  signs  of  tlie 
times,  I  mean  a  feeling  of  exhilaration  and  hope  as  to 
the  probable,  and  almost  inevitable  result,  as  well  of  the 
busy  zeal  of  the  Romish  clergy  as  of  the  conscientious 
labours  of  the  authors  and  favourers  of  the  "  Tracts  for 
the  Times."  I  must  profess  to  regard  the  former,  and 
still  more  decidedly  the  latter  of  tliese  features  of  our 
religious  condition,  when  looked  at  in  their  remoter; 
though  not  distant  tendencies,  as  indicative  of  good,  and 
such  as  should  awaken  to  a  new  activity  all  who  are  pi- 


22  ANCIENT  CHRISTIANITY,  ETC 

ously  waiting  for  the  renovation  of  the  influence  or 
Christianity. 

And  yet,  in  making  this  cheering  profession,  it  ought 
to  be  acknowledged,  lest  we  si)ould  seem  to  be  conceal- 
ing what  it  is  neither  candid  nor  safe  to  deny,  that  there 
are  consequences  not  very  unlikely  to  be  attached  to  the 
Oxford  Tract  controversy  which,  in  their  bearing  upon 
the  peculiar  position  of  the  established  church  at  the 
present  moment,  may  well  excite  anxiety  in  the  minds 
of  its  devoted  friends,  and,  indeed,  in  the  minds  of  all 
who  acknowledge  that  an  intimate  connexion  subsists 
between  the  welfare  of  the  established  church  and  the 
very  existence  of  our  most  cherished  civil  institutions. 
It  is  not  surely  to  pretend  to  any  extraordinary  sagacity 
to  affirm  that  some  of  the  questions  moved  by  the  writers 
we  refer  to,  afiect,  not  very  circuitously,  the  constitu- 
tional influence  of  the  aristocracy,  and  even  the  stability 
of  the  throne.  • 

In  truth,  great  revolutions,  as  has  been  said  of  some 
other  formidable  abstractions,  are  wont  to  advance  upon 
us  in  noiseless  slippers,  and  taking  their  rise  from  some 
quarter  which  was  the  last  to  be  watched  or  suspected, 
amaze  the  iieedless  community  with  their  terrible  sud- 
denness, as  much  as  with  their  destructive  force.  'J'his, 
at  least,  must  be  admitted  by  all,  that  the  general  scheme 
of  princii)les  and  sentiments  that  has  been  imbodied  in 
the  publications  reA^rred  to,  recommends  itself  by  a  still 
depth,  a  latent  power,  a  momentum,  and  a  consistency 
in  its  development,  which  are  the  very  characteristics  of 
those  movements  tliat  are  to  go  on,  and  are  to  bring  with 
them  great  changes,  whether  for  the  better  or  the  worse. 
Really  to  despise  this  system  is,  I  think,  very  inconsi- 
derate, and  to  aff'ect  to  despise  it,  very  dangerous. 


CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  THE  ARGUMENT.  23 

The  political  condition  of  the  country  being  such  as 
It  is,  (if,  in  fact,  wc  may  any  longer  distinguish  between 
the  political  and  the  religious,)  and  teeming  as  it  does 
with  elements  of  disorder,  there  are  many,  no  doubt, 
who  would  most  gladly  remand,  to  some  more  conve- 
nient season,  the  agitation  of  ecclesiastical  doctrines 
which  toucli  the  solid  structure  of  the  constitution.  This 
desire  of  tranquillity  may  be  reasonable  enough  in  itself; 
but  it  is  unavailing,  or  it  comes  now  too  late.  Very  many 
minds,  and  these,  not  of  the  despicable  populace,  or  of 
the  poorly  informed  middle  classes,  but  of  the  best 
taught  and  the  best  trained,  and  of  those  whose  personal 
interests  are  tlie  most  weighty,  have  already  been  deeply 
moved,  and  are  as  unwilling  to  be  left  to  subside  into 
their  former  state  of  indolent  acquiescence  as  those  who 
have  so  wrought  upon  them  are  disinclined  to  remit 
their  labours.  What  event,  in  fact,  can  be  more  impro- 
bable than  that  men  whose  success  in  producing  this 
deep  commotion  has  vastly  surpassed  their  own  fondest 
expectations,  should  spontaneously  relax  their  exertions, 
or  should  begin  to  despond  mid  way  in  a  broad  trium- 
phant course?  Nothing  remains,  then,  whatever  perils 
may  impend,  but  for  those  who  range  them=;elves  on  an 
opposite  side,  to  encounter  their  formidable,  accom- 
plished, and  flushed  antagonists  in  the  best  manner  they 
are  able. 

Yet,  even  if  it  were  now  at  the  option  of  any  who 
might  wish  to  do  so,  to  hush,  at  this  particular  moment, 
■the  controversy  which  is  gathering  around  us — or  even 
if  it  might  be  thought  probable  that,  left  to  itself,  this 
ilreaded  system  would  share  the  fate  of  many  a  porten- 
tous wonder  that  has  quickly  sunk  into  oblivion — even 
in  such  a  case,  a  true  prudence  might  impel  us  rather  to 


?4  ANCIENT  CHRISTIANITY,  ETC. 

promote  than  to  check  tlie  rising  agitation,  and  to  desire 
that,  once  set  fairly  in  movement,  as  it  now  is,  the  qnesr 
tion  of  those  great  and  first  principles,  apart  from  the 
precise  adjustment  of  which  our  English  protestantism 
has  remained  weak  and  vulnerable  on  every  side,  should 
be  brought  to  its  close  without  delay:  and  better  now, 
than  in  some  darker  hour,  when  political  commotions  of 
a  still  more  portentous  kind  than  those  ^yhich  at  present 
disturb  the  country,  would  greatly  enhance  the  perils  in-r 
separable  from  such  a  controversy,  while  they  must,  in 
an  equal  degree,  diminish  the  probability  of  bringing  it 
to  a  happy  issue. 

The  cry  of  "  Popery!"  raised  by  certain  of  the  oppo- 
nents of  the  Oxford  doctrines,  must  be  granted  to  do  as 
little  credit  to  the  discrimination  of  those  who  raise  it, 
as  to  their  candour.  Nevertheless,  and  although  the  illr 
judged  attempt  to  confound  these  doctrines  with  Roman- 
ism, or  to  disparage  them,  unheard,  by  an  implication 
in  the  same  obloquy,  and  thus  to  use  an  unfair  advan- 
tage, drawn  from  popular  prejudices,  is  to  be  strongly 
condemned  and  carefully  avoided,  it  is  yet  certain  that, 
in  argumentative  order,  these  principles  and  opinions 
must  lake  the  lead,  as  standing  first  to  be  considered, 
when  we  have  the  Romish  errors  in  view;  and  that  the 
question  of  Romanism  must  follow  in  the  track  of  the 
present  controversy,  without  an  interval. 

In  truth,  modern  popery  will  never  be  dealt  with  to 
any  good  purpose,  on  the  ground  of  argument,  until  the 
preliminary  discussion  which  is  induced  by  the  Tracts 
for  the  Times,  has  been  disposed  of  to  the  satisfaction, 
not  perhaps  of  the  immediate  disputants,  but  of  all  honest, 
|-easonable,  and  intelligent  by-standers. 

{  have  used  the   words  controversy,  argument,  anc| 


CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  THE  ARGUMENT.  25 

discussion,  correlatives  as  they  are,  and  implying  two 
or  more  parlies,  visibly  in  conflict;  and  yet,  in  the  pre- 
sent instance,  while,  on  the  one  side,  the  champions 
stand  forward  as  a  compact  band,  it  is  not  very  easy  to 
name  their  actual  opponents.  To  confess  a  humiliating 
truth,  the  writers  of  the  Tracts  for  the  Times  are  coolly 
looking  over  the  field,  and  asking  for  those  with  whom 
they  may  engage.  I  am  not  uninformed  of,  nor  do  I 
wish  to  disparage,  several  able  writers  who  have  lately 
«ome  forward  in  this  controversy;  but,  as  I  shall  show, 
there  are  special  reasons  why  their  opposition  should 
be  reckoned  at  less  than,  intrinsically,  it  may  be  worth. 

It  appears  that  a  peculiar  disadvantage  attaches  to  each 
of  the  accredited  religious  parties  among  us,  to  wliom  it 
is  natural  to  look,  as  the  opponents  of  the  Oxford  divines. 
These  incidental  difHculties  constitute,  in  fact,  the  most 
serious,  or,  it  might  be  said,  ominous  circumstance  of 
the  present  theological  crisis.  What  I  mean  precisely 
is  this — that,  whatever  we  may  privately  surmise  con- 
cerning the  unsoundness  of  the  principles  assumed  in 
this  system,  yet  that  those  who  maintain  it,  accomplished 
and  well  skilled  in  argument  as  they  are,  when  they 
come  to  confront  any  one  of  our  religious  parlies,  mani- 
festly possess,  from  incidental  causes,  the  vantage  ground,, 
as  related  to  that  single  class  of  antagonists;  and  so  of 
each  in  its  turn. 

It  is  only  by  the  sheer  necessity  of  the  case,  and  at 
the  impulse  of  motives  arising  from  a  very  unusual  oc- 
casion, thai  I  could  be  induced  to  enter  upon  so  delicate 
and  invidious  a  subject  as  the  weak  points — the  wound 
in  the  hand,  which  disables  one  party  and  another  in 
their  assaults  upon  the  Oxford  Tract  writers.  Let,  how- 
ever, indulgence  be  given  to  a  calm  statement  of  the. 
3^ 


26  A^*CIENT  CHRISTIANITY,  ETCo 

simple  facts,  and  in  terms  as  free  as  possible  from  what 
might  justly  oflend  any.    To  name  first  those  who  actu- 
ally stand  foremost,  and  the  description  belongs  to  a 
large,   and  every  way   considerable  body  in  the  esta- 
blished church,  who,  professing  the  most  cordial  and 
iinexceptive  approbation  of  the  church,  as  it  is,  in  its 
constitution,  its  ritual,  and  its  position  as  related  to  the 
state,  and  who  are  accustomed  to  admire  the  fathers  of 
the  English  Reformation  on  no  account  more  than  on 
that  of  tlieir  wisdom  in  carrying  amendment  just  to  the 
point  where  it  actually  stopped,  and  no  farther,  and  who 
deprecate  any  sort  of  movement  or  agitation  that  tends 
to  change  these  stanch  and  well-contented  Church-of- 
England  men,  when  they  come  to  deal,  in  detail,  with 
the  Oxford  opinions,  may,  without  much  difficulty,  be 
compelled  to  confess,  first,  that  the  cluirch,  as  settled  by 
Edward  VI.  and  Elizabeth,  embraces,  or  favours  princi- 
ples not  as  yet  fully  carried  out,  either  in  its  offices  or 
in   its  discipline  and  working;  and  secondly,  that  the 
church,  or  the  country,  or  botli,  has  been  slowly  and 
imperceptibly  moving  forward   (some  will  say  down- 
ward) from  the  ground  whereon  it  was  reared  by  its 
founders,  and   that,  to  employ  the  favourite  phrase  of 
the  Oxford  Tracts,  we,  of  the  present  day,  liave  become 
^'  far  more  proteslant,"  than  were  ihe  English  protestanls 
of  the  sixteenth  century.    Upon  men  of  this  party,  there- 
fore, the  Oxford  writers  urge  nothing  but  mere  consist- 
ency: they  wish  for  notiiing  that  is  not  involved  in  the 
professions  of  ilie   sound   adherents  of  our   prolestant 
episcopacy:   what  they  plead  for  is  not  a  reform,  but  a 
ye  turn. 

Nor  can  this  appeal  be  otherwise  resisted  than  by  a 
\iardy  detcrminalion  to  hear  nothing  which  might  trou- 


CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  THE  ARGUMENT.  27 

ble  the  present  peace  of  the  church.  In  fact,  as  it  seems, 
numbers  belonging  to  the  party  now  referred  to,  if  it 
should  be  called  a  party,  have  given  in  their  submission 
to  the  Oxford  leaders,  and  wait  only  the  aid  of  a  little 
more  concurrence  on  the  part  of  others,  to  promote 
openly  what  they  favour  silently. 

Consisting  often  of  the  very  same  individuals,  and 
yet  needing  to  be  distinguished  in  regard  to  our  present 
object,  is  the  body  which  stands  foremost  in  upholding, 
and  approving  of,  the  political  constitution  of  the 
church,  and  which  is  more  concerned  (or  seemingly  so) 
for  the  establishment  than  it  is  for  the  church,  and  is 
zealous  for  episcopacy,  on  behalf  of  prelacy,  and  is 
prepared  (unless  we  do  them  an  injustice  in  so  pre- 
suming to  divine  their  dispositions)  to  admit  certain 
changes  which  might  even  compromise  a  little  the  higher 
and  more  spiritual  principles  of  the  church,  were  it 
manifest  that  such  alterations  would  tend  to  strengthen 
the  stakes,  and  to  lengthen  the  cords  of  the  hierarchical 
tabernacle. 

Between  men  of  this  temper  and  the  writers  of  the 
Tracts  for  the  Times,  there  is  a  fundamental,  and,  it 
must  be  added,  an  ominous  discordance,  as  well  of  feel- 
ing as  of  first  principles.  This  discrepancy,  although 
for  the  present  it  may  be  cloaked  and  hushed  by  the 
discreet,  cannot  but  become  more  and  more  notorious  5 
nor  is  it  easy  to  see  by  what  practical  expedients  the 
serious  political  consequences  it  involves  are  to  be 
evaded.  This  capital  difference,  although  men  may  not 
be  willing  to  allow  it,  is  nothing  less  than  a  rift  in  the 
foundations  of  the  ecclesiastical  structure:  it  is  a  settle' 
xnent  more  narrowly  to  be  looked  to  than  might  be  the 


28  ANCIENT  CHRISTIANITY,  ETC. 

broken  windows  and  shattered  ornaments  that  should 
.mark  some  rude  assault  of  the  mob  from  without. 

It  is  not  merely  that  the  authors  and  promoters  of  the 
Oxford  divinity  are,  generally  speaking,  men  of  a  far 
more  serious  temper,  and  possessed  of  better  digested 
notions,  and  are  of  more  religious  habits,  than  their  op- 
ponents (of  the  class  now  referred  to,)  and  are  incom- 
parably better  prepared  to  sustain  any  consequences 
which  their  consistency  may  entail  upon  them,  and  are 
therefore  stronger,  by  a  settled  courage  and  a  calm  fore- 
thought of  trouble;  but  they  have  possessed  themselves 
of  lofty  principles,  in  comparison  of  which  the  compro- 
mising, secular,  and  heartless  maxims  of  political  church- 
men will  prove,  in  the  collision,  as  stubble  or  as  sand. 

These — that  is  to  say,  the  political  adherents  and 
champions  of  the  establishment  who  admire,  not  so 
much  the  tenderness  of  our  English  reformers  toward 
popery,  as  their  obsequious  discretion  in  regard  to  the 
Tudors,  and  who,  as  children  of  tliis  world,  and  fond  of 
tinsel,  have  always  looked  upon  the  trammels  of  church 
subserviency  as  trappings  of  honour — these  persons  now 
find  themselves^uddenly  placed  in  a  new  and  unexpected 
position  of  embarrassment;  or  rather  their  actual  posi- 
tion has  been  laid  bare,  with  little  ceremony,  on  the 
very  side  where  they  might  most  wish  to  avoid  expo- 
sure. And  by  whom  has  this  exposure  been  attempted? 
Not  by  sour  puritans,  or  reckless  levellers;  not  by  the 
vulgar  and  the  fanatical;  not  by  the  professed  enemies 
of  the  church,  of  whatever  class,  and  with  any  of  whom 
it  miglit  have  been  easy  to  deal,  in  the  wonted  modes  of 
haughty  vituperation,  or  who  need  not  have  been  listened 
to  at  all,  so  long  as  they  could  have  been  outvotedo 


CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  THE  ARGUMENT.  29 

Such  are  not,  at  present,  the  troublers  of  the  peace  of 
the  hierarchy;  but  they  are  men  whose  ripe  accomplish- 
ments as  divines,  and  whose  unquestioned  attachment 
to  the  episcopal  church,  not  merely  exempt  them  from 
contempt  or  suspicion,  but  secure  for  them,  and  for 
whatever  they  may  write,  the  respectful  attention  of  all 
portions  of  the  clergy,  and  of  all  among  the  laity  whose 
opinions  can,  in  such  a  case,  have  weight.  Or  if  any 
thing  were  yet  wanting  to  secure  an  advantage  which 
the  one  side  might  desire,  and  which  the  other  might 
fear  to  see  possessed  by  their  opponents,  these  new 
champions  of  church  supremacy  actually  enjoy  it,  name- 
ly, official  influence,  and  the  means  of  moulding  the 
temper  of  the  younger  clergy  to  their  will. 

As  opposed  to  men  thus  advantageously  placed,  and 
thus  furnished — men  girding  themselves  to  act  the  part 
of  confessors,  if  not  of  martyrs,  political  churchmen, 
whether  whigs  or  tories,  cannot  but  feel  their  weakness. 
Fatal  concessions  were  made,  and  dangerous  compro- 
mises submitted  to  by  the  fathers  of  tlie  English  church, 
under  the  despotism  of  the  Tudors,  and  these  very  er- 
rors (unavoidable,  perhaps)  are  now  become  the  unto- 
ward inheritance  of  the  champions  of  the  protestant  estab- 
lishment. These,  therefore,  can  wish  for  nothing  so 
much  as  silence  and  repose: — in  serious  controversy, 
whenever  it  may  come  on,  nothing  awaits  them  but  over- 
throw ;  and  it  is  a  circumstance  which  none  ought  to  lose 
sight  of,  that,  how  little  soever  the  declared  enemies  of 
the  established  church  may  themselves  personally  relish 
the  doctrines  of  the  Oxford  Tracts,  their  instinctive  sym- 
pathies would  at  once  coalesce  with  these  writers,  if  seen 
to  be  contending,  for  high  and  religious  principles,  with 
the  secular  minded  and  political  champions  of  the  estab- 


30  ANCIENT  CHRISTIANITY,  ETC. 

lishment.  Obvious  motives  too,  would  operate,  as  well 
with  Romanists,  as  with  dissenters,  and  with  the  atheistic 
party  impelling  them,  one  and  all,  to  cheer  and  aid  these 
bold  and  learned  impugners  of  church-and-state  subser- 
viency. 

But  we  must  look  to  another  quarter  in  quest  of  those 
who  might  come  forward,  unencumbered,  to  witlistand 
the  advances  of  the  Oxford  doctrines;  and  may  it  be  to 
that,  in  every  sense,  estimable  portion  of  the  clergy — 
call  them  not  a  party,  which  has  conventionally  been  de- 
signated— evangelical?  It  is  true  that  the  modern  disci- 
ples and  successors  of  Romaine,  Fletcher,  Milner,  Cecil, 
Scott,  and  Newton,  have  by  the  sheer  force  of  the  cur- 
rent of  church  affairs,  been  carried  toward  a  new  position, 
and  have  been  led  greatly  to  modify  and  to  tighten  the 
ecclesiastical  notions  professed  by  their  departed  leaders. 
They  nevertheless  still  hold  to  opinions,  and  to  modes 
of  feeling,  which,  though,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  springing- 
up  within  the  established  church,  are  not  of  it,  are  not 
its  genuine  products,  or  strictly  indigenous  to  its  soil; 
for  they  were  the  products  of  the  new  religious  anima- 
tion diffused  through  the  country  by  the  apostolic  labours 
of  Wesley,  Whitefield,  and  their  followers ;  nor  can  it 
well  be  denied  that  those  who  have  professed  these  opi- 
nions, and  who  have  felt  in  this  manner,  have  stood  as 
churchmen,  in  what  is  called — a  false  position;  at  least 
a  position  of  difficulty,  and  of  some  practical  embarrass- 
ment. 

If  this  be  the  case,  or  just  so  far  as  it  may  be  granted 
to  be  so,  nothing  can  be  less  desirable  to  the  evangelical 
dergy  than  to  be  forced  into  any  formal  or  particular  ar- 
gument with  their  accomplished  and  learned  brethren, 
on  the  very  points  that  have  driven  some  of  their  most 


CIRCUMSTAJfCES  OF  THE  ARGUMENT.  3l 

distinguished  predecessors,  and  of  themselves,  to  the 
edge  of  nonconformity,  and  which  chafe  many  a  sensi- 
tive conscience.  They  may,  by  the  aid  of  peculiar  con- 
siderations, drawn  from  the  perils  of  the  time,  have 
brought  themselves  to  believe  that  they  seriously  disaf- 
fect  nothing  in  the  ritual  or  constitution  of  the  church; 
and  they  may  be  satisfied  with  this  or  that  elaborate  ex- 
planation of  certain  difficulties  ;  nevertheless  the  uneasi- 
ness, although  assuaged,  is  not  removed,  for  the  difficul- 
ty is  real,  and  its  reality,  and  its  magnitude,  must  be 
brought  afresh  before  them,  to  the  renewal  of  many  pain- 
ful conflicts  of  mind,  whenever  the  genuine  and  original 
church  of  England  principle  and  discipline,  comes,  as 
now,  by  the  Oxford  divines,  to  be  insisted  upon,  ex- 
pounded, and  carried  out  to  its  fair  consequences. 

What  the  English  reformers  had  in  view,  was — An- 
cient Christianity,  or  the  doctrine,  and  discipline,  and 
ritual  of  the  Nicene  age,  and  of  the  times  nearly  preceding 
that  age  ;  and  so  far  as  the  altered  condition  of  the  social 
system,  and  so  far  as  the  secular  despotism  allowed  them 
"to  follow  their  convictions,  they  realized  their  idea,  and 
probably  would  have  done  so  to  the  extent  of  a  close  imi- 
tation, had  it  been  possible,  of  all  but  the  more  offen- 
sive features  of  that  early  system.  But  how  utterly  dif- 
ferent a  notion  of  Christianity  was  that  which  animated 
the  zeal  of  the  founders  of  melhodism,  and  which,  in  the 
main,  was  cauglit  by  the  fathers  of  the  evangelical  clergy. 
Holding  to  the  same  orthodoxy — the  same  Nicene  and 
Athanasian  doctrine,  every  thing  else  in  the  two  systems 
stands  out  as  a  point  of  distinction.  What  parallels 
could  be  more  incongruous,  even  to  absurdity,  than  such 
as  one  might  strive  to  institute,  for  instance,  between 
Cyprian  and  Romaine,  Tertullian  and  Milner,  Chrysos- 


32  ANCIENt  CHRISTIANITY,  EtC. 

torn  and  Cecil,  Augustine  and  Scott,  Jerom  and  New- 
ton! 

The  evangelical  clergy,  as  Christian  ministers,  and  as 
theologians,  when  they  stand  on  open  ground,  may  in- 
deed freely  and  with  advantage  contend  against  what 
they  may  deem  superstitious  or  papistical  in  the  system 
of  the  Oxford  writers :  but  can  they  do  so,  precisely  as 
churchmen  ?  It  does  not  appear  how,  on  this  narrower 
field,  they  are  to  make  good  their  footing. 

Or,  leaving  doctrine  and  ritual  out  of  the  question,  and 
looking  solely  to  the  ominous  topic  of  church  supremacy 
or  subserviency  in  relation  to  the  state,  the  evangelical 
clergy  cannot  but  feel  the  discussion  to  be  inconvenient 
and  undesirable  ;  fot  it  is  they,  more  than  any  others,  that 
must  be  painfully  conscious  of  what  have  been  the  ill 
practical  influences  of  the  usurpations,  and  the  lay  in- 
terference that  were  submitted  to,  as  by  dire  necessity, 
on  the  part  of  the  founders  of  the  establisliment.  So  it 
happens  that,  in  resisting  what  they  regard  as  the  super- 
stitions of  the  Oxford  divines,  if  driven  back,  they  are 
driven  upon  puritanism;  while  in  withstanding  the  Ox- 
ford church- supremacy  doctrine,  tlieir  retreat,  if  defeated, 
can  only  be  toward,  either  the  dead  levels  of  political 
expediency,  or  the  swamps  of  dissent.  It  is  with  every 
sentiment  of  respect  and  affection  toward  this  portion  of 
the  clergy,  that  I  state  the  fact  of  their  difficult  position 
in  regard  to  the  present  controversy;  and  I  do  so  for  the 
sake  of  precluding  the  fallacious  hope  lliat  the  now 
spreading  opinions  are  to  be  withstood,  much  less  over- 
thrown, by  those  who  occupy  this  particular  ground. 

It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  insist  u])on  the  unfitness 
of  any  class  of  dissenters  to  engage  in  controversy  with 
the  writers  of  the  Tracts  for  the  Times,  inasmuch  aS" 


V.1RCUMSTANCES  OF  THE  ARGUMENT.  33 

there  seems  little  probability  that  such  an  attempt  will 
be  made.  Dissenters  have  had  their  advantage,  and  they 
have  reaped  their  glory,  in  contending  for  our  religious 
liberties,  and  moreover  they  have  found  points  of  easy 
attack  in  assailing  the  loose  opinions  of  political  church- 
men; they  may  also  have  won  partial  triumphs,  in  urging 
the  argument  of  consistency  against  the  evangelical 
clergy;  but  they  would  find  themselves,  as  I  am  inclined 
to  think,  stripped  of  most  of  these  incidental  advantages, 
and  to  be  dealing  altogether  with  another  sort  of  adver- 
sary, were  they  to  close  in  with  the  Oxford  divines  upon 
the  questions  now  agitated.  The  time  undoubtedly  must 
come,  and  the.  increasing  learning  and  intelligence  (and 
candour  too,  it  is  hoped)  of  the  dissenting  bodies,  tend 
to  hasten  its  approach,  when  the  crude  assumptions  on 
which  the  modern  congregational  system  rests,  will  be 
sifted  anew,  and  when  the  principle  of  unchecked  de- 
mocracy, in  church  government,  will  be  brought  to  the 
test  of  scripture.  But  a  controversy  with  the  writers  of 
the  Oxford  Tracts  could  not  fail  to  bring  on  such  a  scru- 
tiny under  circumstances  which  would  render  a  defeat, 
even  on  single  points,  peculiarly  mortifying.  These  as- 
tute and  accomplished  men — the  Oxford  writers,  clearly 
rid,  as  they  are,  of  the  many  embarrassments  that  have 
encumbered  the  less  consistent  churchmen,  with  whom, 
heretofore,  dissenters  have  had  to  do,  would,  in  rebutting 
the  arguments  of  congregalionalists,  find  themselves  free 
to  take  up  aggressive  weapons,  and  might  bring  the  ec- 
clesiastical axioms  of  dissent  into  question,  in  a  manner 
not  to  be  desired  by  its  adherents.  It  may  then  be  con- 
sidered as  a  point  of  discretion  with  the  dissenting  bodies 
to  provoke  no  controversy  in  the  present  instance,  and 
especially  as  they  have  no  immediate  concern  in  this 
4 


34  ANCIENT  CHRISTIANITY,  ETC. 

great  argument,  and  in  fact  are  more  likely  to  get  credit 
by  standing  off  from  the  fray,  than  to  reap  advantage 
from  taking  a  part  in  it. 

Moreover,  it  is  clear  that  the  various,  but  intimately 
connected  subjects,  theological  and  ecclesiastical,  at  this 
time  likely  to  be  discussed,  all  come  under  the  common 
condition  of  involving  laborious  researches  upon  the  field 
of  Christian  antiquity.  But  this  is  a  field  not  much  fre- 
quented, in  our  own  times,  by  non-conformists  of  any 
class.  It  is  but  a  few  individuals,  of  these  communions, 
that  profess  any  direct  acquaintance  with  the  Greek  and 
Latin  divines  ;  nor  do  the  tastes  of  the  dissenting  bodies 
at  all  favour  any  reference  of  the  sort. 

But  granting,  as  we  may,  that,  when  we  have  to  con- 
sider the  safety  and  instruction  of  tlic  uninformed  reli- 
gious classes,  in  relation  to  any  prevailing  errors,  the 
only  practicable  method  is  that  of  a  simple  adherence 
to  the  biblical  branch  of  the  argument ;  it  is  yet  perfectly 
clear  that,  when  we  are  turning  to  those  who  are  them- 
selves to  be  the  sources  of  instruction,  and  the  guides  of 
the  ignorant,  theological  discussions  must  include  a  much 
wider  range  of  inquiry  :  and  as  to  questions,  such  as 
those  with  which,  in  liie  present  instance,  we  have  to 
do,  there  can  be  but  one  course  likely  to  lead  to  a  final 
adjustment  of  the  points  in  dispute;  and  this  only  course 
must  embrace  a  patient  and  piercing  examination  of  the 
entire  body  of  ancient  Christian  literature,  so  far  as  now 
extant.  Any  method  more  summary,  specious  as  it  may 
seem,  will,  as  I  venture  to  predict,  produce  only  a  mo- 
mentary impression,  and  will  leave  us  liable  to  a  speedy 
return  of  the  very  same  controversies.  But  if  tlie  great 
argument  be  courageously  encountered  at  the  first,  and 
entered  upon  with  an  immoveable  determination  to  spare 


CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  THE  ARGUMENT.  35 

no  toil,  to  evade  no  difficulty,  and  to  carry  the  torch  of 
modern  intelligence,  and  modern  biblical  feeling,  into 
every,  and  the  most  intricate  recesses  of  ancient  Chris- 
tianity, there  is  a  reasonable  hope  that,  under  the  divine 
blessing,  a  real  and  permanent  progress  may  be  made  in 
the  momentous  work  of  freeing  our  holy  religion,  effec- 
tually and  finally,  from  the  corruptions  of  many  centuries. 

There  are  some,  however,  who  are  telling  us,  and  it 
must  be  granted,  not  without  an  appearance  of  reason, 
that  our  notions  of  the  importance  of  the  present  con- 
troversy are  vastly  exaggerated,  and  that  therefore  no 
such  laborious  courses  of  argument  as  those  I  am  now 
indicating,  can  be  necessary;  and  on  the  contrary  it  is 
affirmed  that,  left  to  itself,  this  new  portent,  like  many 
equally  alarming,  will  quickly  disappear  from  our  skies. 
It  is  indignantly  asked — if  we  are  to  be  disquieted  in  this 
degree,  and  to  be  moved  from  our  places,  at  the  bidding 
of  a  band  of  recluses,  who,  accomplished  as  they  may  be 
in  worthless  lore,  and  respectable  and  estimable  perhaps, 
as  Christians,  or  as  clergymen,  have  yet  shown  them- 
selves so  feeble  in  understanding  as  to  bow  to  the  frivo- 
lous superstitions  of  the  darkest  times.  Are  we,  it  is 
asked,  to  be  led  by  those  who  suffer  themselves  to  be 
led  by  the  grim  spectres  of  the  twilight  age  of  the 
church's  history,  and  the  midnight  age  of  the  world's 
history  ? 

It  must  be  confessed  that,  on  this  ground,  a  reasonable 
doubt  may  be  entertained  concerning  the  triumph  of  the 
particular  Oxford  confederacy,  and  of  the  magnitude  of 
the  issue  in  which  the  present  movement  is  to  terminate. 
A  silent  acquiescence  in  trivial  superstitions,  or  even  a 
forward  zeal  in  maintaining  frivolous  formalities,  affords 
no  criterion  of  mental  strength,  in  an  age  universally 


36  ANCIENT  CHRISTIANITY,  ETC. 

superstitious,  and  grossly  ignorant ;  but  it  is  liard  not  to 
consider  such  compliances,  or.  such  solemn  trifling,  as 
genuine  indications  of  an  infirm  temperament,  when  they 
meet  us  in  times  of  diffused  intelligence,  and  of  vigor- 
ous mental  activity.  It  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  many 
a  spirit  of  power,  in  times  gone  by,  has  bowed  and 
cringed,  and  moulded  itself  to  the  pattern  of  a  Cassian's 
Institute  ;  but  can  any  spirit  of  power  now  act  the  same 
part  ?  Shall  we  now  any  where  find  strong  and  sound 
minds  forcing  themselves  to  lisp  mummeries,  to  prate, 
and  whisper,  and  juggle,  and  drivel,  and  play  the  church 
puppet,  after  the  fashion  of  the  monkery  of  the  tenth 
century?  Few  will  believe  this  to  be  possible: — it  is 
indeed  hard  for  any  to  believe  it.  In  an  age,  not  of 
idle  but  of  solid  learning,  an  age  of  genuine,  not  of 
vain  philosopliy;  in  an  age  (be  it  of  too  much  license 
and  of  irreligious  latitude,  yet)  of  real  force  and  manli- 
ness, and  of  rational  and  steady  zeal ;  in  an  age  when, 
beside  the  noisy  pretenders  to  high  qualities,  there  are, 
on  every  side,  and  in  the  private  walks  of  life,  the  pos- 
sessors of  high  qualities  of  mind  and  sentiment;  if  in 
such  an  age,  men  who  have  wanted  no  advantages  of 
culture,  are  seen,  in  their  imitations  of  antiquity,  not 
merely  to  be  bringing  before  us  what  might  justly  be 
venerated  on  the  score  of  pristine  purity,  but  also  what, 
unless  it  could  boast  the  hoary  recommendations  of  time, 
must  be  ridiculed  as  simply  absurd,  in  such  a  case,  more 
than  a  surmise  suggests  itself,  as  to  the  intellectual  sta- 
ture of  the  diligent  and  zealous  antiquaries  who  maybe 
playing  the  part  here  supposed. 

But  whatever  estimate  may  be  formed  of  individuals 
(and  it  is  unnecessary  in  this  instance,  as  well  as  invidi- 
pus  to  form  any)  the  opinions  in  question  are  to  be  con- 


CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  THE  ARGUMENT.  37 

sidered  in  their  intrinsic  weight  and  permanent  validity; 
and  also  in  their  bearing,  which  is  peculiar,  upon  the  re- 
lative position  of  the  established  church,  and  of  Roman- 
ism. In  this  view  no  controversy  that  has  been  started 
in  modern  times,  ought  to  be  thought  more  important, 
and  if,  at  the  present  moment  it  have  fallen  into  feeble 
hands,  (a  fact  I  do  not  affirm)  more  sturdy  arms,  we  need 
not  doubt,  will  ere  long  snatch  the  weapons  now  un- 
sheathed, and  will  command  the  respect  of  their  opponents. 
The  opinions  advanced  in  the  Tracts  for  the  Times, 
may  die  away,  for  awhile ;  but  they  must  revive  at 
some  time  not  very  remote.  Motives  of  discretion,  and 
the  fear  of  change,  natural  to  men  in  office,  may  lead  to 
a  gradual  and  silent  retreat  from  the  ground  that  was 
taken  when  the  probable  consequences  of  maintaining  so 
advanced  a  position  had  not  been  maturely  considered. 
The  CENTRE  PRINCIPLE  of  the  Tracts  for  the  Times— 
the  unalienable  right  of  the  church  to  an  uncontrolled 
internal  government,  and  its  inherent  spiritual  supremacy 
in  relation  to  the  civil  power,  generally,  and  to  the  tem- 
porary administration  of  that  power  in  particular,  this 
weighty  doctrine  tends  directly,  as  all  must  see,  to  a 
disruption  of  the  existing  connexion  between  the  church 
and  the  state,  or  to  a  schism,  a  rending  of  the  texture 
from  the  top  to  the  bottom  ;  the  state  being  now  under 
the  guardianship  of  parties  utterly  adverse  to  any  such 
elevated  notions,  and  not  at  all  likely  to  surrender  so 
considerable  a  means  of  sustaining,  from  session  to  ses- 
sion, its  tottering  existence,  as  is  afforded  by  the  pos- 
session of  an  undue  and  irreligious  influence  over  the 
church.  Obvious  motives  of  discretion  may  therefore, 
for  awhile,  restrain  the  combatants  on  the  one  side  of 
this  controversy  as  well  as  on  the  other;  and  if  even 
4* 


38  ANCIENT  CHRISTIANITY,  ETC. 

the  promoters  of  it  have  braced  their  minds  to  meet  all 
the  consequences  of  the  opinions  which,  with  tliem,  are 
serious  matters  of  religion  and  conscience,  it  may  not 
be  so  with  the  clergy  at  large,  without  whose  willing 
ear  and  concurrence  it  would  not  be  possible,  even  for 
the  most  accomplished  writers,  long  to  bear  up  against 
that  tide  of  public  opinion  which  they  have  to  stem. 
With  the  clergy  at  large  it  must  rest  to  decide  whether, 
by  favouring  an  agitation  that  touches  the  principle  of 
the  protestant  establishment,  they  sliall  bring  every  thing 
dear  to  them  into  peril — the  establishment  itself  first — 
then  the  due  influence  of  tlie  aristocracy,  and  then  the 
denuded  throne ;  or  whether,  by  promptly  withdraw- 
ing all  support  from  these  agitators,  and  by  turning 
away  their  ear,  they  shall  slave  off',  awhile,  the  most 
dire  commotion,  religious  and  political,  that  has  ever 
convulsed  this  country. 

The  prediction  has  often  been  uttered,  and  by  men  of 
'  different  parlies  and  opposite  feelings,  that  if  England 
is  again  to  undergo  revolutionary  struggles,  the  heaving 
will  commence  within  the  church.  If  then  any  such 
course  of  events  be  at  all  probable,  the  earliest  symp- 
toms of  its  approach  should  be  observed,  and  the  oppor- 
tunity seized  (if  it  be  offered)  of  so  opening  the  ground, 
as  to  give  free  and  timely  vent  to  ihe  volcanic  tire  that 
murmurs  beneath  our  feet. 

It  is  therefore  on  this  account  especially  that,  while 
yet  we  may  do  so  in  iranquillity,  a  prompt  and  thorough 
attention  should  be  paid  to  such  at  least  of  the  Oxford 
opinions,  as  may  be  the  most  readily  disposed  of;  and 
so,  one  by  one,  to  extract  tlie  perilous  ingredients  from 
the  mass.  And  whatever  circumstance,  of  an  extrinsic 
kind,  recommends   these  opinions  as  they  are  now  ad- 


CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  THE  ARGUMENT.  39 

vanced,  furnishes  a  corroboratory  reason  for  dealing  with 
them  so  as  that  if  dispelled,  it  shall  be  for  ever. 

These  extrinsic  recommendations  are  in  fact  nearly 
as  great  as  can  be  imagined ;  and  they  are  as  extraordi- 
nary as  unlocked  for.  The  solemn  and  plaintive  tones 
of  the  ancient  church,  once  heard  amid  the  pangs  of 
martyrdom,  or  resounding  as  soft  echoes  wakening  the 
solitudes  of  the  deserts  of  Syria,  Arabia,  and  upper 
Egypt,  the  very  same  tones,  and  the  same  testimony, 
at  once  for  great  truths  and  for  great  errors  too — for 
eternal  verities,  and  for  futile  superstitions,  are  now,  and 
after  so  long  a  silence,  breaking  from  the  cloisters  of 
Oxford. 

This  revival  of  the  religion,  and  of  the  forms,  of  the 
principle,  and  of  the  costume  of  the  martyr  church,  has 
not  sprung  up  in  Germany,  where  the  love  of  mysticism 
and  paradox,  recommended  by  rich  erudition,  is  every 
day  evolving  systems  destined  to  enjoy  their  turn  of 
celebrity,  and  to  be  forgotten  ;  but  in  England,  where  a 
characteristic  national  good  sense,  and  a  vigorous  prac- 
tical feeling,  and  the  free  interaction  of  all  elements, 
moral  and  inlelleclual,  combine  to  give  condensation, 
and  so  much  the  more  force,  to  whatever  courts  the  suf- 
frages of  the  educated  classes.  And  in  England  this 
revival  of  ancient  Christianity  has  not  burst  from  among 
the  sects  where,  having  less  confinement,  it  would  sooner 
waste  its  infant  strength  ;  but  from  the  very  heart  of  the 
established  church,  where  salutary  corrective  influences 
are  as  strong  and  steady  as  they  can  be.  Farthermore, 
it  has  not,  as  in  certain  instances  v/hicli  might  be  men- 
tioned, been  iomented  among  juniors,  more  zealous  than 
discreet,  and  with  whom  the  want  of  judgment,  and  the 
unconfc'Sfccd  inipulses  of  hot  ambition,  might  have  com- 


'40  ANCIENT  CHRISTIANITY,  ETC. 

bined  to  cherish  extravagance  of  conduct,  and  opinion— 
not  with  such  have  we  now  to  do,  but  with  men  of  ma- 
ture understanding,  and  of  authenticated  professional 
quality,  and  whose  official  sentiments,  tending  more  to- 
ward repose  than  agitation,  must  be  supposed  to  out- 
weigh any  irregular  desires  of  notoriety.  The  writers 
of  the  Tracts  for  the  Times,  generally,  have  far  more, 
in  every  sense,  to  risk,  than  they  are  likely  to  gain  by 
the  course  they  are  pursuing.  And  finally,  it  is  a  cir- 
cumstance worthy  of  notice,  and  corroboratory  of  the 
general  idea  of  our  approaching  an  extraordinary  and 
peculiar  crisis  of  the  church,  that,  if  one  of  the  English 
universities  rather  than  the  other  could  give  sanction  to 
doctrines  and  practices  drawn  from  Christian  antiquity, 
those  maintained  in  the  Tracts  for  the  Times  are  ema- 
nating not  from  Cambridge — but  from  Oxford. 


SUBSTANCE  OF  THE  ARGUMENT. 

Concisely  expressed,  the  argument  of  the  reforma- 
tion turned  upon  the  alleged  difference  between  the  reli- 
gion of  the  middle  ages,  and  that  of  the  New  Testament. 
The  Romanist  generally  admitted  this  diversity,  and  yet 
maintained  that,  whatever  constituted  the  difference,  was 
binding  upon  the  church:  t!ie  reformers  therefore  had 
more  to  do  with  the  principle  of  the  authority  which 
imposed  this  difference,  than  with  the  difference  in  its 
details,  and  which  was  confessed  on  all  sides. 

Using,  for  the  moment,  a  similar  brevity  of  descrip- 
tion, it  may  be  affirmed  that  the  argument  mooted  by 


SUBSTANCE  OF  THE  ARGUMENT.  41 

the  writers  of  the  Oxford  Tracts,  turns  upon  the  differ- 
ence (if  there  be  any)  between  the  religion  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  that  of  the  pristine  and  martyr  church, 
which  difference,  if  even  it  were  ascertained,  they  would 
represent  to  be  not  merely  innocent,  but  imitable. 

After  exhibiting  this  discrepancy,  there  would  remain 
to  be  discussed  the  very  important  question  concerning 
the  deference  that  is  due,  by  the  modern  church,  to  the 
ancient  church,  on  the  alleged  ground  of  its  having  pos- 
sessed, what  we  have  lost,  namely,  the  unwritten  mind, 
and  the  practices  of  the  apostolic  age ;  as  well  as  those 
authoritative  decisions,  on  various  points  of  discipline 
and  worship,  to  which,  in  their  epistles,  the  apostles  fre- 
quently refer,  as  well  known,  although  not  then  and 
there  specified.  Whatever  may  be  the  consequences, 
or  tendency  of  their  modes  of  thinking,  the  Oxford  wri-  , 
ters  are  not,  like  TertuUian,  labouring  to  establish  the 
equal  authority  of  a  perpetually  emanating  tradition,  or 
a  power  of  gradual  development,  granted  to  the  church; 
but  are  simply  affirming  tlie  authority  of  traditions 
known,  or  Vv'ell  surmised  to  be,  strictly  apostolical. 

Such,  as  I  understand  them,  are  the  points  we  have 
to  consider  in  the  present  argument.  On  all  hands, 
within  the  protestant  pale,  the  well  ascertained  usurpa- 
tions and  corruptions  of  the  Romish  church  are  utterly 
discarded.  What  have  we,  in  England,  to  do  with  the 
Gregorys,  the  Sylvesters,  the  Innocents,  the  Urbans, 
of  Rome,  or  with  the  notions  they  favoured,  or  with  the 
practices  they  enjoined?  What  part  hath  the  bishop  of 
Rome  in  tliese  western  islands  ?  Prove  that  he  may 
lawfully  command  us,  as  his  spiritual  children,  and  we 
submit. 

But  it  is  another  thinir  to  insulate  ourselves  from  the 


42  ANCIENT  CHRISTIANITY,  ETC. 

broad  continent  of  ancient  and  Catholic  Christianity:  it  is 
another  thing  to  denounce,  unexamined,  whatever  consti- 
tutes the  glaring  difference  between  our  own  Christia- 
nity, and  that  of  the  times  when  men  were  living  who 
had  received  their  faith,  at  one  or  two  removes,  from 
the  lips  of  the  twelve.  It  is  another  thing  to  incur  the 
risks  of  contemptuously  discarding  all  that  the  Apos- 
tles might  have  recommended,  or  might  have  established, 
altliough  only  incidentally  (or  perhaps  not  at  all)  alluded 
to  in  their  extant  writings. 

With  the  indolent  hope  of  evading  laborious  inqui- 
ries, and  of  escaping  from  endless  discussions,  and  of 
effectively  cutting  every  cord  that  ties  us  to  Romanism, 
with  some  such  views  as  these,  there  may  be  those  who 
would  sink  antiquity  altogether,  well  content  to  reserve, 
just  the  canonical  writings.  But  to  do  this,  is,  as  I  think 
may  be  proved,  as  impracticable  a  course,  as  it  is  bold, 
unwarrantable,  and  unnecessary.  Nothing  remains  for 
us,  I  am  persuaded,  but  to  employ  all  that  serious  dili- 
gence and  discrimination  which  we  may  be  masters  of, 
and  which  the  importance  of  the  occasion  calls  for,  in 
an  extensive  research  of  Christian  antiquity. 

Admitting  the  general  principle,  which,  as  I  now  state 
it,  may  be  easily  established,  that  a  deference  is  actually 
due  to  the  mind  and  testimony  of  the  ancient  church 
catholic,  there  remains  to  be  determined,  first — the  chro- 
nological limits  of  that  church;  or  the  precise  period 
within  which  it  was  in  fact  catholic,  and  entitled,  as 
such,  to  respect;  and  secondly,  what  are  the  limitations 
under  which  this  deference  should  be  yielded,  and  this 
testimony  listened  to.  Is  reverence  due  to  every  thing 
that  was  generally  believed  and  practised  within  the  pre- 
cincts of  the  ancient  church?     If  not,  what  are  the  ac- 


SUBSTANCE  OF  THE  ARGUMENT.  43 

tual  exceptions;  and  what  the  rules  that  should  guide  us 
in  making  them? 

The  writers  of  the  Tracts  for  the  Times  have  not  as 
yet  effected  the  indispensable  preliminary  work  of  de- 
fining the  legitimate  authority  of  the  ancient  church,  and 
setting  it  clear  of  the  many  perplexities  that  attach  to 
the  subject.  Until  this  be  done,  they,  in  asserting  this 
authority,  and  others  in  impugning  it,  are  beating  the  air. 

In  the  following  pages  an  endeavour  will  be  made,  and 
will  be  repeated  from  different  starting  points,  so  to  ex- 
hibit the  real  religious  condition,  and  moral  and  spiritual 
characteristics  of  the  ancient  church,  as  may'go  far  in 
aiding  us  to  draw  the  line  between  a  due,  and  an  undue 
deference  to  this  alleged  authority.  If  I  should  be  able 
to  effect  my  intention,  with  any  degree  of  success,  I 
shall  indulge  the  hope  of  relieving  many  wavering  minds 
from  their  perplexities. 

"Whatever  analogies  may  seem  to  connect  the  doctrines 
of  the  Oxford  Tracts  with  popery,  the  difference  be- 
tween the  two  is  such  as  that  those  must  certainly  be 
disappointed  who,  hastily  snatching  up  the  rusty  swords 
and  spears  of  the  reformers,  rush,,  so  accoutred,  upon 
the  Oxford  divines.  To  demolish  popery  (a  work,  as 
it  has  proved,  not  so  easily  accomplished  as  some  had 
imagined)  is  only  to  leave  the  ancient  Christianity  of 
the  Oxford  writers  in  a  fairer  and  loftier  position. 

Nevertheless,  as  I  have  already  said,  if  we  can  but 
clearly  define  and  wall  about  the  respect  due  to  the  an- 
cient church,  and  mark  the  points  where  suspicion  is  to 
come  in  the  place  of  deference,  almost  every  thing  will 
have  been  done  which  mere  argument  can  be  supposed 
to  effect  in  ridding  the  world  of  the  illusions  of  the  Ro- 
mish superstition.     Our  present  labours  then,  arduous 


44  ANCIENT  CHRISTIANITY,  ETC. 

as  they  may  be,  are  animated  by  a  most  cheering  hope. 
We  have  indeed  a  single  subject  in  view;  but  we  have 
a  double  purpose;  and  the  ulterior  intention  of  what  we 
are  proposing,  challenges  to  itself  a  grandeur  and  a  so- 
lemnity which  must  urge  every  motive  of  exertion  to 
the  highest  pitch.  The  human  mind  can  indeed  admit 
no  impulses  more  powerful  than  those  which  press  upon 
it  when,  as  now,  a  new  hope  is  presented  of  aiding  in 
the  destined  overthrow  of  the  horrid  despotism  of  the 
papal  heresy. 

Our  subject  then  is  not  a  biblical  argument,  or  a  ques- 
tion of  interpretation;  nor  is  it  abstractedly  theological, 
much  less  metaphysical  or  philosophical;  but  js  purely 
historical:  and — what  we  have  to  inquire  about  is — the 
actual  condition  of  the  Christian  church  from  the  apos- 
tolic times,  and  downwards,  toward  the  seventh  cen- 
tury. 

— The  history  of  Christianity!  alas  the  ominous  words, 
which  sink  like  a  mortal  chill  into  the  heart.  Christi- 
anity lias  absolutely  no  difliculties,  or  none  that  ought 
for  a  moment  to  sta^'ger  a  sound  and  well  informed  mind, 
'  none  excepting  such  as  attach  to  its  history;  «but  these, 
although  clearly  separable  from  the  question  of  its  own 
divine  origin,  yet  how  serious  and  how  disheartening 
are  they!  The  Christian,  if  lie  would  enjoy  any  se- 
renity, should  either  know  nothing  of  the  history  of  his 
religion,  or  he  should  be  acquainted  with  it  so  profoundly, 
as  to  have  satisfied  himself  that  the  dark  surmises  which 
had  tormented  his  solitary  meditations,  have  no  substan- 
tial bearing  upon  the  principles  of  his  faitli. 

In  truth  these  difficulties,  whatever  they  may  be,  when 
they  come  to  be  accurately  examined,  are  found  to  press, 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  HISTORY.  45 

not  upon  Christianity  itself,  but  upon  certain  too  hastily 
assumed  principles  of  natural  theology,  which  they  ap- 
pear to  contradict.  The  general  aspect  of  the  gospel 
economy  suggests  expectations,  as  to  the  divine  purposes 
toward  mankind,  at  large,  which  not  only  have  not  hi- 
therto been  justified  by  the  actual  course  of  human  af- 
fairs, but  which  the  very  explicit  predictions  of  our 
Lord,  and  of  his  apostles,  had  we  properly  regarded 
them,  should  have  taught  us  not  to  entertain.  After 
listening,  in  the  first  place,  to  the  predictions  of  the  Jew- 
ish prophets  concerning  the  reign  of  the  Messiah,  and 
then  to  the  song  of  the  angelic  choir,  announcing  the  ac- 
tual birth  of  the  Prince  of  Peace,  if  we  turn,  either  to 
our  Lord's  public  discourses,  or  to  liis  private  conversa- 
tions with  his  disciples,  a  very  remarkable  contrast  prer- 
sents  itself;  and  whether  or  not  we  may  be  successful 
in  harmonizing  the  apparent  discrepancy,  it  presents  an 
alternative  strikingly  confirmatory  of  our  faith  as  Chris- 
tians. For,  in  the  first  place,  the  perfectly  unambigu- 
ous, and  often  repeated  announcements  made  by  Christ 
to  his  followers  of  persecutions,  universal  hatred,  and 
cruel  deaths  which  awaited  those  who  were  to  promul- 
gate his  doctrine,  were  tlie  very  reverse  of  what  an  un- 
inspired founder  of  a  new  faith  would  either  himself 
have  adinitted,  or  would  have  ventured  to  hold  before 
his  early  adherents.  Then,  and  in  the  second  place,  these 
same  announcements,  when  com  pared  with  the  facts  which 
make  up  the  history  of  the  church,  stand  forward  as  pro- 
phecies so  fulfilled  to  the  letter,  as  to  vindicate  the  divine 
prescience  of  him  who  uttered  them. 

Li  like  manner  the  well  known  predictions  contained 
in  the  apostolic  epistles,  and  which  speak  of  the  cor- 
ruptions and  the  apostacies  that  should  arise  within  the 

.5 


46  ANCIENT  CHRISTIANITY,  ETC. 

church,  are  available  in  this  same  two-fold  manner,  first, 
as  evidences  of  reality  and  sincerity  on  the  part  of  the 
apostles,  and  as  opposed  to  enthusiasm  and  guile,  which 
would  have  dictated  things  more  fair  and  smooth;  and, 
secondly,  of  a  divinely  imparted  foreknowledge  of  the 
course  of  events. 

Let  it  be  granted  then,  that  the  history  of  Christianity 
painfully  contradicts  the  bright  expectations  we  might 
have  entertained  of  what  the  gospel  was  to  be,  and  to 
do.  But  does  it  in  any  particle  contradict  our  Lord's 
own  forewarnings,  or  the  apostles'  explicit  predictions 
concerning  the  fate  and  position  of  its  adherents  in  this 
world  of  evil?     Assuredly  not. 

These  general  observations,  often  as  they  have  been 
advanced  by  Christian  writers,  might  be  considered  as 
impertinent  in  this  place  as  to  their  ordinary  bearing; 
but  they  contain  an  inference  peculiarly  significant  in  re- 
lation to  our  immediate  object.  Let  me  say  then,  tliat, 
without  prejudging  the  scheme  of  ecclesiastical  princi- 
ples which  we  are  now  proposing  to  sift,  we  may  at 
least  affirm  that  it  assumes  and  supposes  a  stale  of  things 
in  the  early  church,  much  more  in  accordance  with  the  fond 
and  vague  expectations  just  referred  to,  than  either  with 
the  well  defined  predictions  of  Paul,  Peter,  and  Jude,  or 
with  the  pages  of  church  history.  Now  this  difl^erence 
should  be  noted,  and  it  should  load  those  who  hitherto 
have  overlooked  it,  to  give  the  more  earnest  attention  to 
the  details  of  an  inquiry,  tiie  intention  of  which  is  to 
discover  whether  ancient  Christianity  was,  in  fact,  what 
we  should  have  rejoiced  to  find  it,  or,  on  the  coiUrary, 
what  the  apostolic  prophecies  would  have  led  us  sorrow- 
fully to  look  for. 

If  at  any  time,  or  if  in  any  particular  instance,  the  au- 


CHRISTIANITY  AND   ITS  HISTORY.  47 

thority  of  the  ancient  church  is  to  be  urged  upon  the 
modern  church,  then  surely  there  is  a  pertinence  in  turn- 
ing to  the  apostolic  prophecies  of  perversions,  corrup- 
tions, apostacies,  quickly  to  spring  up  within  the  sacred 
enclosure  itself,  which  meet  us  at  the  threshold,  and 
seem  to  bring  us  under  a  most  solemn  obligation  to  look 
to  it, lest,  amid  the  fervours  of  an  indiscriminate  reverence, 
we  seize  for  imitation  the  very  things  which  the  apostles 
foresav/  and  forewarned  the  church  of,  as  fatal  errors! 

No  practical  caution,  as  it  seems  to  me,  can  be  much 
more  clear,  as  to  its  propriety,  or  important  in  itself, 
than  the  one  I  now  insist  upon.  Say,  we  are  about 
to  open  the  original  and  authentic  records  of  ancient 
Christianity,  and  in  doing  so,  have  a  specific  intention  to 
compare  our  modern  Christianity  therewith,  and  to  re- 
dress it,  if  necessary,  in  accordance  with  the  pristine 
model.  But  at  this  moment  the  apostolic  predictions, 
like  a  handwriting  on  the  wall,  brighten  belbre  our  eyes, 
in  characters  of  terror.  We  are  entering  a  wide  field, 
upon  the  skirls  of  which  a  friendly  hand  has  posted  the 
— "  Beware  of  pits  and  swamps,  even  on  the  beaten  paths 
of  this  sacred  ground."  To  addict  oneself  to  the  study  of 
ancient  Christianity,  with  a  credulous,  antiquarian  ve- 
neration, regardless  of  the  apostolic  predictions,  is  to 
lay  oneself  down  to  sleep  upon  the  campagna,  after 
having  been  told  that  the  whole  region  exhales  a  malig- 
nant miasma:  the  fate  of  one  so  infatuated,  would  not  be 
more  sure,  than  merited. 

Nevertheless  these  cautions,  which  common  discretion 
not  less  than  piety  suggest  and  confirm,  are  misunder- 
stood if  they  are  used  to  discourage  any  researches 
which  our  extant  materials  afford  the  means  of  prose- 
cuting.    The  scoffer  and  skeptic,  casting  a  hasty  glance 


48  ANCIENT  CHRISTIANITY,  ETC. 

upon  church  history,  and  looking,  by  instinct  of  his  per- 
sonal tastes,  to  the  scum  and  the  froth,  turns  away  in  ar- 
rogant disgust:  but  the  Christian  may  not  do  the  same. 
On  the  other  side,  the  unlearned  believer,  finding,  in 
church  history,  if  he  looks  into  it  at  all,  what  revolts  his 
feelings,  clasps  his  bible  to  his  bosom,  with  a  renewed 
affection,  and  resolves  to  know  nothing  else:  and  it  may 
be  an  ill-advised  zeal  that  would  disturb  such  a  resolu- 
tion. 

Mean  time.  Christians  of  cultivated  minds,  and  pecu- 
liarly all  who  stand  forward  as  the  teachers  of  Christi- 
anity, owe  it  to  themselves,  and  to  others,  to  free  them- 
selves from  the  many  perils  of  ignorance,  on  this  parti- 
cular ground; — and  on  no  ground  is  it  more  dangerous 
to  be  ignorant  or  to  be  imperfectly  informed.  It  is  a 
happy  omen  of  the  present  times,  that  this  ignorance,  or 
slender  information  lately  attaching  to  all  but  here  and 
there  a  solitary  and  secluded  antiquary,  is  now  being  ra- 
pidly dispersed;  so  that  on  all  sides,  those  who  addict 
themselves  to  theological  studies,  whether  exegetical, 
dogmatic,  or  ecclesiastical,  are  turning,  with  an  animated 
and  sedulous  zeal,  to  the  remains  of  ancient  Christian  li- 
terature. Some,  perhaps  with  an  overweening  reverence, 
and  others  with  a  predetermined  contempt;  but  more  than 
a  few,  are,  with  a  well  directed  and  intelligent  curiosity, 
turning  over  the  long  neglected  tomes  that  imbody  the 
history  of  our  religion:  and  it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that, 
at  this  moment,  these  laborious  inquiries,  set  on  foot  by 
peculiar  circumstances,  in  each  instance,  are  pursued  in 
Germany,  in  France,  and  in  England.  The  combined 
result  (for  the  several  results  must  meet  at  length  in  one 
issue)  cannot  but  effect  some  momentous  changes  in  each 
of  these  countries;  nor  is  it  easy  to  exclude  the  expecta- 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  HISTORY.  49 

tion  of  consequences  which  must  affect  the  religious  con- 
dition of  Europe,  and  of  the  world. 

Among  ourselves,  however,  there  are  too  many  who, 
whether  from  motives  of  indolence,  which  one  must  be  re- 
luctant to  impute,  or  from  a  dim  forethought  of  some  pro- 
bable and  undesired  consequences,  hold  back  from  the 
studies  which  others  are  so  honourably  prosecuting. 
Looking  at  the  Christian  world  at  large,  it  is  my  full  con- 
viction, that  there  is  just  now  a  far  more  urgent  need  of 
persuasives  to  the  study  of  Christian  history  and  literature, 
than  of  cautions  against  the  abuse  of  such  studies.  Too 
many  feel  and  speak  as  if  they  thought  there  were  no 
continuity  in  their  religion;  or  as  if  there  were  no  uni- 
versal church;  or  as  if  the  individual  Christian,  with  his 
pocket  bible  in  his  hand,  need  fix  his  eyes  upon  nothing 
but  the  little  efldy  of  his  personal  emotions;  or  as  if  Chris- 
tianity were  not  what  it  is  its  glory  anrl  its  characteristic 
to  be — a  religion  of  history. 

Christianity,  the  pledge  to  man  of  eternity,  is  the  oc- 
cupant of  all  lime;  and  not  merely  was  it,  itself,  the  ripen- 
ing of  the  dispensations  that  had  gone  before  it,  but  it 
was  to  be  the  home  companion  of  the  successive  genera- 
tions of  man,  until  the  consummation  of  all  things.  Not 
to  know  Christianity  as  the  religion  of  all  ages — as  that 
which  grasps  and  interprets  the  cycles  of  time,  is  to  be 
in  a  condition  like  that  of  the  man  whose  gloomy  cham- 
ber admits  only  a  single  pencil  of  the  universal  radiance 
of  noon. 

The  eager,  forward-looking  temper  of  these  stirring 
times,  has  withdrawn  Christians,  far  too  much,  from  the 
quieting  recollection  tl)at  they  themselves  are  members 
of  a  series,  and  portions  of  a  mass;  nor  do  we,  so  much 
or  so  often  as  might  be  well,  entertain  tlie  solemn  me- 


50     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

dilation,  that  we,  individually,  are  hastening  to  join  the 
general  assembly  of  those  who,  from  age  to  age,  have 
stood  \vhere  we  now  stand,  as  the  holders  and  profes- 
sors of  God's  truth  in  the  world.  Is  there  no  irreligion, 
no  want  of  faiih  and  fervour,  indicated  by  a  voluntary 
and  utter  ignorance  of  those  into  whose  company,  within 
a  few  months,  or  years,  we  are  to  be  thrown? 

Our  Christianity  is  not  a  system  of  philosopliy,  or  ab- 
stract principles,  broached,  no  one  cares  when,  and  having 
no  visible  attachments  to  place,  time,  or  persons,  and 
which,  as  it  is  pregnant  with  no  hopes,  is  rich  with  no 
records.  Again,  it  stands  vividly  contrasted  with  false 
religions  of  all  names,  which,  contradicted  as  they  are 
by  genuine  history,  in  what  concerns  their  origin,  are 
throughout  every  year  and  century  of  their  continuance, 
more  and  more  belied  by  the  course  of  events;  and  are, 
as  time  runs  on,  loosening  their  precarious  hold  of  tiie 
convictions  of  their  adherents,  by  illuding,  more  and 
more,  their  expectations.  Christianity  is  the  reverse  of 
all  this,  in  its  form,  and  in  the  mode  of  its  conveyance, 
and  in  the  sentiments  which  it  generates.  Its  own  con- 
stant tendency  is  to  gather,  not  to  scatter;  and  not  merely 
does  it,  or  would  it,  bind  its  true  adherents,  of  each  age, 
in  a  visible  communion;  but  it  knits  together,  in  one,  by 
a  retrospective  and  anticipative  feeling,  the  children  of 
God,  who  are  dispersed  through  all  periods  of  time. 

Because  it  is  of  the  very  essence  of  truth  in  religion, 
to  blend  itself  with  a  certain  series  of  events,  and  to  mix 
itself  with  history,  example  more  than  precept,  biog- 
raphy more  than  abstract  doctrine,  are  made  to  convey 
to  us,  in  the  scriptures,  the  various  elements  of  piety. 
Truth  in  religion,  is  something  that  has  been  acted  and 
transacted;  it  is  something  that  has  been  imbodied  in 


UPON  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  51 

persons  and  societies;  and  so  intimately  does  this  condi- 
tion of  CONTINUITY  attach  to  tiie  gospel  scheme,  that  the 
inspired  narrative  of  tlie  past,  runs  on  without  a  break, 
into  the  announcement  of  the  future;  so  as  iliat  tlie  en- 
tire destinies  of  the  liuman  fansily — a  part  narrated,  and 
a  part  foretold,  a  part  brought  under  the  direct  beams  of 
history,  and  a  part  dimly  adumbrated  in  prophecy,  are 
grasped  by  it,  and  claimed  as  its  possession. 

One  must  be  really  perplexed  when  one  sees  the  Chris- 
tian, with  an  historic  bible  in  his  hand,  and  who,  by  its 
aid,  commands  a  prospect  over  all  the  fields  of  time,  and 
far  into  the  regions  of  eternity,  yet  tliinking  that  certain 
intermediate  periods  of  the  great  cycle  of  God's  dispen- 
sations are  nothing  to  him;  or  that  he  may  as  well  be  ut- 
terly ignorant  of  large  tracts  of  this  extensive  course,  as 
know  them.  The  forming  an  acquaintance,  so  far  as 
we  possess  the  means  of  opening  it,  with  our  brethren, 
and  fellow  citizens,  and  precursors,  in  the  Christian  com- 
monwealth, we  owe  to  their  virtues  and  sufferings;  and 
we  owe  it  also  to  their  errors  and  illusions;  and  if  they 
themselves,  we  may  be  sure,  could  now  send  us  a  mes- 
sage of  love,  it  would  relate  ranch  ratlier  to  the  errors 
against  which  we  should  be  cautioned,  than  to  the  vir- 
tues of  which  we  may  find  brighter  examples  in  scrip- 
ture itself. 

But  there  is  even  a  more  serious,  and  pointed  motive, 
urging  upon  the  ministers  of  religion,  especially,  a  de- 
vout and  careful  study  of  church  history;  and  it  is  a 
motive  which  has  a  very  particular  bearing  upon  the  dif- 
ficult inquiries  we  have  now  in  view.  What  then  is 
church  iiistory  (and  especially  what  would  it  be,  if  our 
materials  were  more  ample)  but  a  running  commentary 
upon  our  Lord's  most  solemn  promise,   to  be  with  his 


52     THE  DErENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

servants  always,  even  to  the  end  of  the  world  ?  These 
words,  sacred  as  they  are,  and  peculiar,  as  having  been 
littered  at  the  most  remarkable  moment  of  all  time  (if 
only  that  of  the  second  advent  be  expected)  can  have  no 
njeaning,  or  none  that  can  render  them  important  to  our- 
selves, if  we  are  not  to  look  into  church  history  for  their 
verification. 

This  promise,  so  emphatically  uttered,  with  whatever 
benefits  it  may  teem,  was  not  given  without  a  clear  pre- 
science of  the  very  tilings  that  most  oflend  and  perplex 
us  in  the  records  of  Christianity.  Not  a  heresy  that  has 
troubled  the  church,  not  any  outburst  of  pride  and  pas- 
sion among  divines,  that  has  disgraced  it,  no  illusion 
t!iat  has  seduced  the  kw,  and  none  that  has  infatuated 
tlie  many,  or  even  the  church  at  large,  throughout  the 
h.pse  of  ages,  was  unforeseen  by  him  who  thus  formally 
engaged  to  be  with  and  near  his  ministers,  in  the  long 
succession  of  their  office,  until  he  comes  again.  How 
is  it  possible  to  think  less  than  this  ?  Or  how,  if  we 
liiink  it,  can  we  be  incurious  concerning  the  actual  indi- 
cations of  that  divine  presence  from  age  to  age? 

But  the  difficulty  is  this: — these  indications  of  the 
Lord's  presence  with  his  church,  have  not  been  such  as 
we  should  have  expected  to  find  them  ;— the  Lord  has 
net  seemed  to  surround  himself  with  the  men  whom  we 
sliould  have  chosen  for  his  companions:  and  those  cap- 
tious words  are  almost  on  our  lips; — "This  man  keepeth 
company  with  publicans  and  sinners."  Now  it  is  pre- 
cisely in  connexion  with  some  such  uneasy  feelings  as 
these — that  many  pious  persons  entertain  prejudices 
which  have  a  very  unfavourable  influence  upon  llieir 
religious  cliaractcr ;  and  it  relates  immediately  to  the 
great  questions  now  bel''ore  us  to  lay  the  axe  to  the  root 


UPON  THE  ANCIEXT  CHURCH.  53 

of  siicii  notions.      Let  us  then  consider  our  actual  posi- 
tion in  tliis  instance. 

— When  in  any  case,  a  well  known  friend,  or  a  teacher 
and  guide,  or  a  prince  and  patron,  acts  in  the  very  way 
which  we  had  anticipated,  and   when  he  says  and  does 
very  nearly  what  we  should  have  imagined  him  to  say 
and  do,  under  given  circumstances,  we  stand  on  one  side, 
with  a  quiet,  incurious   acquiescence,  just  as  we  watch 
the  rising  and  the  setting  of  the  sun,  when  his  undevi- 
ating  revolutions  bring  him,  at  the  wonted  moment,  to  the 
line  of  the  horizon.     But  how  different  are  our  feelings, 
and  how  much  more  intense  and  wakeful  is  our  attention 
if,  while  we  still  confidently  rely  upon  what  we  know 
of  his  wisdom,  and  goodness,  he  starts  aside  from  the 
path  we  had  presumed  to  mark  out  for  him,  and  holds  a 
course  which  confounds  every  notion  we  had  entertained 
of  his  character  and  purposes ! — In  any  such  case,  we 
rouse  ourselves  from  our  previous  listlessness,  and,  with 
an  eager,  anxious,  intentness  of  mind,  we  watch  every 
movement,  listen  to  every  word  he  utters,  and  we  note, 
even  the  least  considerable  circumstances   of  his  beha- 
viour ;  his  every  gesture  fixes   our  eye,  and  we  let  no- 
thing escape  us  which  may  perhaps  afford  some  indica- 
tion of  those  hidden  reasons  which  will  at  length  explain 
this  unlocked  for  course  of  conduct.     Do  we  not  tho- 
roughly know  our  friend,  patron,  prince?     May  we  not 
hope  then,  that,  sooner  or  later,  we  shall  find  the  means 
of  truly  interpreting  the  enigmas  of  his  administration. 
The  application  of  such  a  supposed  case  is  obvious, 
in  this  instance.     If  it  be  true  that  the  general  complex- 
ion of  church  history,  through  the  course  of  long  cen- 
turies, is  such  as  to  offend  our  preconceived  notions, 
and  to  shock  our  spiritual  tastes,  and  if,  while  we  bend 


54     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

over  the  records  of  those  dim  eras,  the  promise  of  the 
Lord  to  be  with  his  servantr.,  still  rings  in  our  ears,  as  a 
dolet''ul  knell  of  ]ioj)es  broken  ;  if  it  be  so,  or,  as  far  as 
sucli  may  be  the  fact,  the  motive  becomes  more  impres- 
sive and  serious  which  impels  us  to  acquire  an  authentic 
knowledge  of  this  course  of  events,  in  all  its  details, — 
and  if  there  are  any  who  must  acknowledge  that  they 
feel  a  peculiar  repugnance  in  regard  to  church  history, 
they  are  the  very  persons,  more  than  any  other,  whom 
it  behooves  to  school  themselves  in  this  kind  of  learning; 
for  it  seems  more  than  barely  probable,  that  this  distaste 
springs  from  some  ill  affection  of  their  own  minds,  de- 
manding to  be  exposed  and  remedied.  Such  persons 
may  well  admit  the  supposition  that  tliey  have  hastily 
assumed  certain  notions  of  their  Lord's  principles  of 
government,  which  are  in  fact  unlike  what,  at  length, 
they  will  find  themselves  to  be  sui)ject  to;  and  if  so, 
the  sooner  they  dispel  any  such  false  impressions,  the 
better.  On  the  face  of  the  instance  supposed,  one 
should  say,  that  any  perplexities  we  may  feel  in  regard 
to  that  course  of  events  which  constitutes  the  history  of 
Christianity,  probably  spring  from  some  deep-seated  error 
of  feeling,  or  of  opinion,  which,  for  our  own  sakes,  we 
should  carefully  analyze. 

Reasons  such  as  these,  ought  to  be  enough  to  engage 
the  ministers  of  religion,  at  least,  in  the  labour  of  ob- 
taining as  much  familiarity  as  their  more  urgent  duties 
will  allow,  with  the  records  of  our  faith,  from  age  to 
age.  Other  motives,  very  obvious,  and  often  adverted 
to,  belong  rather  to  individuals,  addicting  themselves, 
from  personal  taste,  or  professional  obligation,  to  specific 
studies,  and  who  will  not  stop  short  of  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  subject.     To  some  of  these  technical 


rPON  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  55 

uses  of  church  history,  I  shall  have  occasion  presently 
to  advert;  but  these  pursuits  have  yet  another,  and  a 
general  recommendation,  which  I  do  not  remember  to 
have  seen  insisted  upon,  although  it  is  not  in  itself  incon- 
siderable, and  is  very  proper  in  this  place  to  be  adduced, 
when  our  inquiries  are  to  involve  some  of  the  most  in- 
tricate principles  of  human  nature,  as  wrought  upon  by 
religious  motives. 

In  all  cases,  then,  in  which  the  materials  of  history 
are  copious,  as  well  as  authentic,  it  holds  good  as  a  rule, 
that  the  practical  utility  of  each  portion  of  it  bears  a 
direct  proportion  to  the  degree  in  which,  among  the 
people,  or  within  the  community  so  reported,  the  various 
elements  of  human  nature  have  been  developed.  A  low 
or  contracted  development  of  human  nature,  involves  a 
barren  and  profitless  narrative  of  events  :  nothing  can  be 
iKore  parched,  or  destitute  of  nutriment,  than  the  story 
of  the  fortunes  and  misfortunes  of  savage,  or  semi-bar- 
barous nations  :  a  page  or  two,  comprising  the  broad 
facts  of  the  social  condition  of  such  communities,  affords 
all  the  instruction  we  could  derive  from  a  volume,  were 
it  written.  In  truth,  although  there  may  he  pictures  of 
the  imperfectly  civilized  races,  there  can  be  no  history 
of  them.  It  is  Greece  that  may  have  a  history,  where 
the  human  mind  spreads  itself  out,  like  a  superb  flower, 
fronting  the  sun,  until  the  most  delicate  tints,  and  the 
finest  structure  of  its  inmost  recesses  are  laid  open  :  and 
the  same  is  true  of  Rome,  and  Italy,  and  modern  Europe. 
Now  on  this  very  principle,  although,  in  comparing 
church  history  with  that  of  civil  societies,  the  former 
must  be  granted  to  want,  almost  entirely,  the  brilliancy, 
and  movement,  that  give  an  untiring  charm  to  the  latter, 
yet  has  it  its  prerogative,  and  a  high  one  (if  solid  instruc- 


66     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

tion  be  sought  for)  and  it  is  this,  that  it  exhibits  men  to 
to  our  view,  as  wrought  upon  by  motives  at  once  more 
profound,  and  less  easily  understood,  than  any  other 
motives.  False  religions  have  indeed  turned  up  human 
nature  from  its  depths,  in  a  manner  never  e fleeted  by 
interests  that  were  merely  secular.  But  true  religion, 
beside  its  power  in  common  with  the  false,  to  animate 
the  deepest  seated  emotions,  has  exhibited  these  occult 
elements  in  combination,  and  in  contrast  with,  emotions 
altogether  peculiar  to  itself,  and  whicli,  without  its  aid 
would  lay  latent  and  unsuspected,  beneath  the  soil  of 
human  nature,  from  age  to  age.  It  is  Christianity,  and 
nothing  else  could  do  it,  that  has  shown  man  all  that  is 
in  his  heart.  No  other  stage  of  human  affairs  exhibits  hu- 
man nature,  as  this  does,  displaying,  now  the  virtues  that 
ally  man  to  God,  and  now  the  dark  passions  that  seem 
to  render  him  the  fit  associate  and  minister  of  fiends. 
What  line  of  history  then  can  be  equal  to  church  history, 
for  instructiveness  ?  Thus  it  must  be  ordinarily  ;  but 
it  is  peculiarly  so,  as  often  as  occasions  arise  in  which 
what  may  be  new  to  ourselves,  who  are  but  of  yester- 
day, m;iy  be  found,  in  its  type  or  pattern,  on  this  or  tliat 
page  of  the  records  of  the  church.  On  such  occasions, 
niore  perhaps  than  in  any  other,  those  possess  a  great 
advantage  over  their  brethren,  whose  minds  are  already 
richly  stored  with  a  well  digested  mass  of  instances, 
applicable  to  the  novelties  (or  apparent  novelties)  of 
whatever  kind,  v.hich,  from  time  to  lime,  blaze  out  to 
alarm  the  timid,  and  to  a;lure  the  simple,  /i  ready  recol- 
lection of  the  ancient  guise  of  the  very  same  substantial 
error  or  folly,  is  all  that  we  need,  in  many  cases,  for 
allaying  our  fears,  or  for  securing  us  a;jainst  lite  infatua- 
tion which  affects  others,  or  for  suggesting  the  remedies 


UPON  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  57 

that  are  to  be  employed.  Under  circumstances  more  or 
less  strictly  analogous,  we  have  the  invaluable  opportu- 
nity of  seeing  how  our  predecessors  have  discharged 
their  duty,  or  have  compromised  it. 

The  canonical  adage — "  nothing  new  under  the  sun," 
holds  good  in  a  peculiar  sense  within  the  precincts  of 
the  church,  and  it  does  so  for  an  obvious  reason.  What 
is  new,  or  rather  what  seems  to  be  new,  in  the  manifold 
up-turnings  of  human  affairs,  springs  from  some  less- 
usual  combination  of  the  thousand  lighter  impulses  tliat 
are  at  work  within  our  bosoms,  nnd  these  impulses,  be- 
cause they  are  so  many,  and  because  the  individual 
varieties  of  disposition  are  indefiiiitely  numerous,  will 
be  throwing  out,  from  time  to  time,  rare  conjunctions  of 
temper  and  of  circumstance.  But  now  those  deeper  prin- 
ciples of  our  moral  and  intellectual  nature  to  which 
Christianity  addresses  itself,  are  very  ieAv,  and  the  ele- 
ments of  trutii  also  are  few;  and  hence,  by  necessity, 
the  changes  of  which  the  two,  in  combination,  are  sus- 
ceptible are  comparatively  few,  and  therefore  must  seve- 
rally be  of  more  frequent  recurrence. 

There  is  little  risk  in  affirming  that  the  first  five  cen- 
turies, or  we  might  say,  tlie  first  tliree  of  the  Christian 
history,  comprise  a  sample  of  every  form  and  variety  of 
intellectual  or  moral  aberration  of  which  human  nature 
is  at  all  susceptible,  under  the  influence  of  religious 
excitement.  No  great  ingenuity  therefore  can  be  needed 
in  matching  any  modern  form  of  error  or  extravagance, 
with  its  like,  to  be  produced  from  the  museum  of  an- 
tique specimens.  And  how  much  relief,  under  any  nev/ 
perplexity,  may  be  derived  from  such  recognitions,  those 
can  best  tell  who  are  the  best  furnished  with  the  requi- 
site erudition.  If  then  there  were  no  other  recommenda- 
tion of  these  studies,  the  one  now  referred  to  would  be 
6 


58     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODEHN  CHURCH 

enough  to  repay  all  the  labours  which  they  involve.  I 
venture  to  add  that,  in  tlie  momentous  and  intricate 
questions  to  which  we  are  now  addressing  ourselves,  a 
fair  use  of  antiquity,  as  a  copia  instantiarum,  will  carry 
us  safely  and  undoubtingly  through  every  strait. 

Or  if  there  are,  or  have  been  agitators  of  the  repose 
of  the  church,  who  would  resent  any  recurrence  to  an- 
tiquity, as  applicable  to  themselves,  and  who  would  not 
be  afraid  to  denounce  any  appeal  to  it  as  futile,  super- 
stitious, and  impertinent,  the  parties  with  wiiom  we 
have  now  to  do,  noi  merely  admit  the  propriety  of  such 
a  reference,  but  arc  the  most  forward  to  invite  it; 
making  it  ihcir  boast  that  the  image  of  wiiat  they  are, 
or  what  they  would  fain  be,  may  be  contemplated  in  the 
fair  glass  of  antiquity.  Nothing  remains  then  but  tliat 
they,  and  their  opponents,  should  together  look  into  that 
glass. 

These  indispensable  studies,  have,  in  fact,  been  revived 
of  late,  to  a  great  extent,  in  our  own,  as  well  as  other 
countries ;  while  the  use  and  necessity  of  them  are  forced 
anew  upon  the  minds  of  all  by  the  rapid  and  unexpected 
advances  of  Romanism,  whose  ministers  are  taking  ad- 
vantage of  that  ignorance  of  antiquity  which  has  too 
long  been  the  reproach  of  protestantism. 

So  much  importance  attaches,  at  the  present  moment, 
to  ecclesiastical  learning,  that  it  must  not  be  deemed 
impertinent,  in  this  place,  to  exhibit  the  futility  of  cer- 
tain suppositions  on  the  ground  of  which  many  excuse 
their  sligiit  acquaintance  with  it. 

In  the  first  place  then,  it  is  often  roundly  aiTirmed, 
that  we  may  know  as  much  of  the  history  of  our  reli- 
gion as  can  avail  us  for  any  practical  purposes,  through 
the  medium  of  some  one  or  more  of  our  modern  com- 
pilatioufc — called  histories  of  the  church.      ISow  to  this 


UPON  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  59 

sssnmption  it  might  be  taken  as  a  very  sufficient  reply, 
that  we  have  at  present  to  do,  as  well  in  the  instance  of 
the  Oxford  divines,  as  in  that  of  the  Romanists,  with 
men  who  know  vastly  more  of  Christian  antiquity  than 
is  to  be  gathered  from  such  sources.  Can  we  then 
imagine  it  to  be  safe  to  enter  into  controversy  with  our 
antagonists,  less  well-informed  than  they  are?  Besides, 
since  the  time  when  most  of  those  compilations  were 
given  to  the  world,  the  views  of  the  best  informed  per- 
sons, on  the  general  subject  of  historical  composition, 
have  undergone  a  great  change ;  so  that  even  the  most 
able  and  noted  of  our  writers,  in  this  line,  have  lost  very 
much  of  the  esteem  which  they  once  enjoyed;  that  is 
to  say,  as  historians.  Who,  now-a-days,  thinks  it  is 
enough  to  know  just  as  much  of  history  as  Hume,  or 
Robertson,  may  inform  him  of?  History,  to  subserve 
its  serious  practical  uses,  is  not  to  be  conveyed  in  broad 
generalities,  or  in  the  rounded  periods  of  a  philosophical 
digest:  it  is  not  a  landscape  painting  of  gay  forms,  and 
well-grouped  masses  ;  but  a  sedulous  adduction  of  ge- 
nuine materials,  such  as  shall  enable  us,  so  far  as  re- 
moteness of  time  admits,  to  understand,  as  well  the  ac- 
actual  condition  of  the  mass  of  mankind,  at  different 
eras,  as  the  motives  and  conduct  of  those  who  have  con- 
trolled public  events. 

And  if  nothing  less  than  this  sort  of  elaborate  prepa- 
ration can  be  accepted  in  the  walks  of  secular  history, 
assuredly  we  need  rather  a  larger  measure  than  a  less, 
to  render  ecclesiastical  history  of  much  avail ;  and  espe- 
cially for  this  reason  that,  in  what  relates  to  religion, 
the  intimate  character  and  motives  of  men  are,  relatively, 
more  important,  as  compared  with  their  overt  acts,  or 
public  conduct,  than  in  civil  affairs ;  while,  at  the  same 
time,  these  interior  facts  are  liable  to  be  more  disguised. 


60     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

Statesmen  may  be  truly  estimated,  much  more  easily 
than  churchmen,  and  yet  a  just  estimation  of  the  latter  is 
)nuch  more  important  for  securing  the  ends  of  history, 
than  it  can  be  of  the  former.  We  cannot  therefore  stand 
excused  from  the  task  of  carefully  considering  the  entire 
mass  of  extant  materials  of  church  history,  if  we  wish 
to  secure  any  valuable  result  of  sound  wisdom,  as  the 
fruit  of  our  labour. 

Allowing  every  merit  that  can  fairly  be  claimed  for 
our  modern  church  histories,  to  what  immense  deduc- 
tions are  they  not  liable,  if  considered  as  mirrors  of 
Christian  antiquity  ?  The  ecclesiastical  and  theological 
prejudices  of  some  of  these  writers,  and  their  pledged 
subserviency  to  particular  interests,  the  utter  want  of 
religious  feeling  in  others,  the  superstition  of  some,  and 
the  active  fanaticism  of  a  few,  are  enough  to  justify  our 
passing  them  by,  one  and  all,  if  what  we  have  in  view 
be  a  genuine  acquaintance  with  the  subject.  Besides, 
if  such  works  embrace  the  sixteen  or  eighteen  centuries 
of  Christianity,  those  periods  that  are  in  fact  the  most 
important, — nay,  almost  exclusively  important,  must  be 
confined  within  limits  much  too  narrow  ;  and  even  this 
scanty  allotment  of  pages,  has,  in  most  instances,  been 
still  farther  restricted  by  the  admission  of  tedious  disqui- 
sitions, on  subsidiary  points,  of  no  intrinsic  value — as 
whether  a  martyrdom  occurred  in  this,  or  the  next  year; 
or  whether  a  senseless  heresy  included,  or  did  not  in- 
clude, such  or  such  an  unintelligible  dogma !  points  which 
are  dismissed  at  last  with  the  ingenuous  confession,  that 
they  are  neither  of  much  consequence,  nor  susceptible 
of  any  conclusive  determination! 

But  even  if  we  could  name  a  modern  history  of  Chris- 
tianity, exempt  from  all  such  faults  and  deficiencies,  it 
would  still  be  nothing  better  than — a  statement,  joreparerf 


rPON  THE  ANCIEXT  CHURCH.  61 

and  digested,  and  therefore  less  than  what  is  indispen- 
sable, when  momentous  questions  come  to  hinsfe  upon  a 
true  and  exact  knowledge  of  antiquity.  The  reading  a 
modern  church  history,  supposing  it  to  combine  every 
excellence,  if  compared  with  the  perusal  of  the  entire 
and  original  materials  whence  that  history  was  drawn, 
and  of  which  it  is  a  digest,  might  not  unfitly  be  likened 
to  the  listening,  in  chancery,  to  a  body  of  written  affi- 
davits, and  statements  of  facts,  carefully  and  profession- 
ally dressed  up,  and  moulded  with  a  special  intention; 
such  a  body  of  evidence,  compared  with  the  hearing  and 
seeing  of  the  actual  witnesses,  in  a  court  of  law.  In 
the  one  case  the  most  astute  professional  sagacity  often 
fails  to  reach  the  naked  truth  ;  while  in  the  other,  an 
honest  and  intelligent  juryman,  conversant  with  human 
nature,  wants  no  assistance,  ordinarily,  in  discerning 
the  true  from  the  fa^se. 

The  point  I  am  now  insisting  upon  I  feel  to  be  of 
great  practical  importance  in  relation  to  the  wide  range 
of  controversies  which  we  have  in  view;  for  it  is  my 
firm  conviction,  tliat  nothing  will  be  brouglit  to  a  satis- 
factory conclusion  until  tlie  moral  and  spiritual  condition 
of  the  early  church  lias  been  fully  laid  open.  But,  in 
innumerable  instances,  it  is  found  that  a  just  and  vivid 
conception  of  things  or  persons,  remote,  that  is  to  say 
— the  very  truth,  apart  from  which  all  else  that  we  may 
know  is  substantially  false,  crimes  before  us,  unlooked 
for,  and  while,  perhaps,  we  may  have  been  listlessly 
threading  our  way  down  a  lifeless  page.  And  sucli 
casual  indications,  or  revelations,  as  one  might  call  them, 
of  the  naked  truth,  are  more  likely  than  not  to  be  passed 
over  by  the  grave  compiler  of  history,  as  unworthy  of 
his  dignified  regard,  or  as  altogether  trivial. 

It  might,  indeed,  seem  as  if  a  judicious  selection  from 
6* 


62     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

the  Greek  and  Latin  church  writers,  would  sufficiently 
secure  tlie  benefits  to  be  derived,  even  from  the  perusal 
of  the  whole  of  them,  thus  saving  the  time  and  cost  of 
doing  so.  But  a  moment's  consideration  will  expose 
the  fallaciousness  of  such  a  supposition  ;  for  even  allow- 
ingthe  utmost  discretion  to  him  who  undertakes  the  task 
of  selection,  on  what  principle,  let  it  be  asked,  is  that 
selection  likely  to  be  made  ?  It  must  be  replied  that,  at 
once  the  pious  tastes  of  the  editor,  and  his  solicitude  to 
provide,  in  the  best  manner  he  can,  for  the  combined 
edification  and  pleasure  of  his  readers  (of  the  religious 
public  such  as  it  is)  will  prompt,  nay  compel  him,  to  cull 
ihejio'wers  of  sacred  literature,  as  he  goes  ;  and  to  leave, 
where  he  finds  them,  the  rveeds.  In  a  word,  he  will 
gather,  as  most  proper  for  his  purpose,  whatever  an  in- 
telligent and  pious  reader  would  spontaneously  distin- 
guish, with  a  margin  pencil  line,  as  worthy  of  a  second 
perusal.  All  this  may  be  well  enough,  if  the  mere  per- 
sonal edification  of  the  private  Christian  be  in  view; 
but  what  sort  of  provision  is  it,  which  is  thus  made  for 
acquiring  a  safe  and  competent  knowledge  of  the  merits 
and  character  of  the  actors  in  church  history?  Misera- 
bly will  any  one  be  deluded  who  trusts  himself  to  any 
s^ch  culled  materials  !  I  think  more  than  a  few  of  the 
passages  I  shall  presently  have  occasion  to  cite,  how 
pertinent  soever  they  may  be  in  regard  to  the  questions 
at  issue,  are  of  a  kind  that  would  never  have  found  a 
place  in  any  selection  from  the  fathers.  Nay,  these  pas- 
sages reveal  facts  which  the  compilers  of  churcli  history 
liave  studiously  concealed  from  their  readers. 

If  we  are  anxious  to  know  what  the  church  was  at 
any  time,  and  wliat  its  teachers  and  masters  were,  then 
the  more  judicious  (in  one  sense)  such  a  selection  may 
be,  the  more  effectively  will  it  lead  us  astray:  the  choicest 


UPON  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  6S 

collection,  made  on  any  such  principle,  would  be  the 
most  mendacious,  regarded  as  testimony.  Such  a  col- 
lection, considered  as  a  material  of  history,  is  a  splen- 
did vapour,  hovering  as  a  glare  of  seductive  light,  over 
a  swamp.  Materials  so  brought  together,  are  just  what 
a  body  of  evidence,  produced  in  court,  would  be,  if  an 
advocate  were  allowed  to  bring  forward  every  thing  in 
which  the  witnesses  are  agreed,  and  to  suppress. every 
thing  in  which  they  differ.  Yet  it  is  precisely  by  the 
sifting  of  the  discrepancies  in  testimony  that  truth  is  eli- 
cited. 

So  far  as  Christianity  is  the  same  in  all  ages,  and  in 
all  hearts,  truly  admitting  its  influence,  there  must  be 
very  much,  in  the  writings  of  all  Christian  men  (what- 
ever system  they  may  have  lived  under)  which,  in  the 
highest  and  best  sense  of  the  word,  is  catholic;  and  it 
is  just  this  catholic  element,  or  genuine  portion  of  such 
writings,  that  recommends  itself  to  our  pious  sympa- 
thies, meet  it  where  we  may,  and  which  therefore  will 
be  seized  upon  by  risht-minded  collectors  of  the  golden 
sayings  of  good  men.  But  now  it  is  precisely  toward 
the  discordant  portions  of  ancient  Christian  writings  that 
the  keen  eye  of  historic  industry  should  be  directed.  It 
is  not  the  choice  portions,  but  the  refuse,  not  the  sound, 
but  the  unsound,  not  the  symmetrical,  but  the  disfigured, 
not  the  wisdom,  so  much  as  the  folly,  that  we  have  need 
to  scrutinize,  and  to  trace  to  its  origin.  Without  a  pa- 
radox it  may  be  affirmed  that,  in  labouring  to  know  what 
the  Christian  body  really  was,  in  any  age,  it  is  what  is 
(in  a  sense)  impertinent,  that  will  prove  the  most  perti- 
nent to  our  purpose.  In  a  word,  it  is  less  the  sameness, 
than  the  difference,  which  we  should  be  looking  for. 
Do  we  not  well  know  that,  in  matters  of  religion,  v/hat 
appears   the  fairest,  demands   often  the   nicest   sifting: 


64     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

and  that,  to  be  credulous,  is  to  be  duped,  until  we  are 
driven  to  doubt  of  every  thing.  Those,  therefore,  who 
know,  in  matters  of  church  history,  only  what  modern 
writers  may  please  to  have  reported,  stand  exposed  to  a 
cruel  shock,  and  a  sad  trial  of  their  principles,  should  it 
ever  happen  to  them  to  learn  a  little  more. 

Nor  ouglitany  translation  to  be  confided  in,  as  conclu- 
sive evidence,  in  historical  disquisitions;  for  we  have  not 
merely  to  guard  against  wilful  perversions  of  the  sense 
of  ancient  authors,  and  the  many  oversights  to  which 
every  translator  is  liable,  but  against  the  constant  illu- 
sion of  attributing,  to  certain  words  and  phrases,  neces- 
sarily employed  by  tlie  translator,  a  modern  instead  of 
an  ancient  sense.  A  translation  may  be  literal,  or  it  may 
be  free,  and  in  fact  the  best  possible  in  its  kind,  and  yet 
may  convey  to  tiie  modern  ear  notions  substantially  dif- 
fering from  those  which  were  attached  to  the  equivalents, 
by  the  ancient  writer,  and  his  reader.  And  thus  it  is, 
and  must  be,  because  the  language  of  every  people  is  not 
a  universal  medium  of  ideas  and  notions,  common  to 
mankind;  but  is  the  instrument  of  a  particular  set  of 
minds,  nicely  adapted  to  its  occasions,  and  whenever 
employed  by  energetic  writers,  is  much  more  specific, 
than  generic;  and  therefore  is  insusceptible  of  transla- 
tion, in  the  direct  proportion  in  which  it  may  be  worth 
translating. 

The  earliest  Christian  writers,  who,  most  of  them,  can 
claim  very  little  regard  on  account  of  any  excellencies  of 
style,  or  even  of  matter,  but  whose  evidence  is  of  the  ut- 
most consequence  in  ecclesiastical  discussions,  suffer  pe- 
culiarly in  a  translation;  for  a  false  taste,  and  a  dialect 
in  which  the  most  incongruous  elements  were  mingled — 
jumbled  together,  fill  them  with  unpleasing  turns  of  ex- 
pression, which,  v*^hen  t!iey  come  to  be  literally  rendered 


UPON  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  65 

(and  a  free  version  is  not  in  these  instances  admissible) 
make  them  absolutely  repulsive,  so  that  the  perusal  in  a 
translation,  is  more  wearisome  than  it  seems  in  the  ori- 
ginal. The  writers,  inestimable  as  they  are  on  account 
of  their  testimony  (the  preservation  of  which  ought  to 
be  regarded  as  an  instance  of  providential  interposition, 
for  subserving  important  ends)  these  writers  are  not  to 
be  known,  to  any  good  purpose,  otherwise  than  in  their 
own  language.  There  is  no  alternative,  in  the  present 
instance,  but  that  of  manfully  addressing  ourselves  to  a 
task  of  some  labour  and  difhcully.  The  controversies 
upon  which  the  church  is  now  entering,  are  of  vital  con- 
sequence: the  doubts  propounded  are  inveterate,  and  any 
course  that  may  be  taken,  at  the  suggestion  of  indolence 
and  impatience,  and  which  may  seem  at  first  to  be  sum- 
mary and  sufficient,  will  prove,  as  I  venture  to  predict, 
to  be  as  unavailing  as  trite  and  meager.  At  a  time  when, 
in  the  pursuit  of  secular  interests,  men  in  all  professions 
are  making  unheard-of  efforts,  and  are  undergoing  la- 
bours which  our  fathers  did  not  dream  of,  ought  it  to  be 
considered  as  a  great  thing  if  those  to  whom  the  preser- 
vation and  defence  of  sacred  truths  are  committed,  should 
be  expected  to  be  fully  masters  of  the  subject  they  have 
to  do  with?  The  perusal,  through  and  through,  of  the 
Greek  and  Latin  writers,  of  the  first  six  centuries,  is  a 
labour  not  to  be  compared  with  those  undergone,  in  the 
course  of  his  education  and  early  practice,  by  every  ac- 
complished lawyer. 

Another  common,  but  very  unfounded  impression,  re- 
lative to  the  extant  remains  of  Christian  antiquity  (the 
prevalence  of  which,  at  the  present  time,  would  leave 
a  most  dangerous  advantage  in  the  hands  of  tliose  whom 
we  are  to  withstand)  is  to  this  effect:  That  the  Greek 
and  Latin  fathers  were  men  of  intellect  so  slender,  and 


66     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

are  generally  either  so  inane,  or  so  absurd,  or  so  erro- 
neous, that  the  perusal  of  them,  except  by  a  few  curi- 
ous antiquaries,  is  a  sheer  waste  of  time;  or  at  least  that 
it  can  never  repay  the  toil.  Or  it  is  affirmed,  that,  so 
far  as  these  writers  were  sound  and  judicious,  the  same 
sentiments,  better  expressed,  may  be  met  with  much 
nearer  home,  and  in  our  own  language.  Or,  generally, 
that  whatever  accomplishments  the  ministers  of  religion 
may  possess,  they  may,  in  these  days  of  benevolent  ac- 
tivity, employ  tlieir  time  to  better  advantage  than  in 
brushinij  the  dust  from  neglected  folios.  'J'he  course  of 
events  is  hastening  to  offer  a  startling  refutation  of  any 
such  frivolous  assumptions. 

It  is  not,  we  may  be  sure,  those  who  possess  much 
of  this  indispensable  learning,  that  in  any  such  way  set 
it  at  naught;  and  it  is  an  acknowledged  rule,  in  all 
walks  of  science  and  literature,  tliat  the  scoffs  and  cap- 
tious objections  of  the  ignorant  need  not  be  seriously 
replied  to — "  know  what  you  are  speaking  of,  and  then 
contemn  it."  Now  the  mere  fact  of  applying  any  com- 
prehensive terms,  either  of  admiration  or  contempt,  to 
a  body  and  series  of  writers,  stretching  through  seven 
hundred  or  a  thousand  years,  and  these  writers,  natives 
as  they  were  of  distant  countries,  some  of  them  simple 
and  rude,  while  otliers  were  erudite  and  accomplished, 
may  be  taken  as  a  proof  of  heedlessness,  regarding  the 
matter  in  hand,  sufficient  to  excuse  a  silent  disregard  of 
the  objection  it  involves.  These  "  fathers,"  thus  grouped 
as  a  little  band,  by  the  objectors,  were  some  of  tliem  men 
of  as  brilliant  genius  as  any  age  has  produced;  some, 
commanding  a  flowing  and  vigorous  eloquence,  some, 
an  extensive  erudition,  some,  conversant  with  the  great 
world,  some,  whose  meditations  had  been  ripened  by 
years  of  seclusion,  some  of  them  the  only  historians  of 


UPON  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH,  67 

the  times  in  which  they  lived,  some,  the  chiefs  of  the 
philosophy  of  their  age;  and,  if  we  are  to  speak  of  the 
whole,  as  a  series  or  body  of  writers,  they  are  the  men 
who,  during  a  long  era  of  deepening  barbarism,  still  held 
the  lamp  of  knowledge  and  learning,  and,  in  fact,  aflord 
us  almost  all  that  we  can  now  know,  intimately,  of  the 
condition  of  the  nations  surrounding  tiie  Mediterranean, 
from  the  extinction  of  the  chissic  fire,  to  the  time  of  its 
rekindling  in  the  fourteenth  century.  The  church  was 
the  ark  of  all  things  that  had  life,  during  a  deluge  of 
seven  hundred  years. 

Such  is  the  group  which  is  often  conveniently  dis- 
missed with  a  concise  phrase  of  contempt  by  some!  It 
may  be  suspected  that  very  many  of  the  delighted  ad- 
mirers of  the  History  of  tlie  Decline  and  Fall  of  the 
Koman  Empire,  are  little  aware  of  the  extent  of  Glib- 
bon's  obligations  to — the  fathers.  Were  it  possible  to 
draw  off  from  that  seductive  work  the  entire  materials 
derived  by  the  indefatigable  author  from  the  ecclesias- 
tical compartment  of  his  library,  it  is  no  small  propor- 
tion of  the  splendour,  the  accuracy,  the  correct  draw- 
ing, the  vivid  colouring,  which  are  its  ciiarm  and  praise, 
that  would  be  found  wanting.  Well  would  it  have  been 
if  some  of  the  professed  champions  and  historians  of 
Christianity,  had  been  as  thoroughly  conversant  with  the 
remains  of  Christian  antiquity  as  was  its  most  dangerous 
assailant. 

The  ignorance  of  which  w^e  are  here  complaining  has 
once  endangered  our  faith  as  Christians;  and  it  is  now 
endangering  our  faith  as  protestants. 

Nearly  of  the  same  quality,  and  usually  advanced  by 
the  same  parties,  is  the  portentous  insinuation,  or  the 
bold  and  appalling  averment,  that  there  was  little  or  no 
genuine  Christianity  in  the  world  from  the  times  of  Jus- 


68     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

tin  Martyr  to  those  of  WiclifTe,  or  of  Luther!  and  the 
inference  from  this  assumption  is,  that  we  are  far  more 
likely  to  be  led  astray  than  edified  by  looking  into  the 
literature  of  this  vast  territory  of  religious  darkness. 

I  must  leave  it  to  those  who  entertain  any  such  som- 
bre belief  as  this,  to  repel,  in  the  best  manner  they  are 
able,  those  fiery  darts  of  infidelity  which  will  not  fail  to 
be  hurled  at  Christianity  itself,  as  often  as  the  opinion  is 
professed.  Such  persons,  too,  must  expound  as  they 
can,  our  Lord's  parting  promise  to  his  servants. 

Notions  of  this  sort,  and  there  are  many  of  like  kind, 
all  take  their  rise  from  some  narrow  and  sectarian  hy- 
pothesis concerning  Christianity.  We  do  not,  perhaps, 
find,  during  certain  cycles  of  the  church's  history,  that 
style  or  dialect,  which,  by  an  intimate  association  of 
ideas,  has  combined  itself  with  our  religious  sentiments  ; 
and  therefore,  it  is  to  us,  and  our  peculiar  feelings,  as  if 
Christianity  itself  had  actually  not  been  extant  at  such 
times.  If  these  are  our  feelings,  it  is  well  that  we  get 
rid  of  them  with  all  speed,  Christianity  is  absolute 
truth,  bearing  with  various  effect,  from  age  to  age,  upon 
our  distorted  and  discoloured  human  nature,  but  never 
so  powerfully  pervading  the  foreign  substance  it  enters 
as  to  undergo  no  deflections  itself,  or  to  take  no  stains; 
and  as  its  influence  varies,  from  age  to  age,  in  intensity, 
as  well  as  in  the  particular  direction  it  may  take,  so  does 
it  exhibit,  from  age  to  age,  great  variations  of  form  and 
hue.  But  the  men  of  any  one  age  indulge  too  much  the 
overweening  temper  that  attaches  always  to  human  na- 
ture, when  they  say  to  themselves — our  Christianity  is 
absolute  Christianity;  but  that  of  such  or  such  an  age, 
was  a  mere  shadow  of  it. 

Let  Christians,  whose  characteristic  it  should  be  not 
to  think  more  highly  of  themselves  than  is  meet,  cherish 


UPON  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  69 

a  very  different  feeling,  and  be  willing  to  open,  if  I  may- 
say  so,  a  kindly  communion  with  their  brethren  of  dis- 
tant times.  Surely  far  too  little  of  this  sympathy  is  felt 
by  many  who,  because  the  authority  of  the  early  church 
has  been  overstrained  and  perversely  employed  by  Ro- 
manists, have  almost  learned  to  feel  toward  their  brethren 
of  the  early  ages,  as  their  adversaries  in  a  controversy, 
just  as  a  man  is  apt  to  harbour  a  grudge  against  a  good 
neighbour  who  happens  to  have  been  subpoenaed  by  his 
enemy,  to  give  evidence  against  him  in  a  suit.  If  the 
fathers  have  given  a  handle  to  popery,  we  must  remem- 
ber they  little  knew  what  it  was  to  which  they  were 
giving  a  handle. 

It  will  presently  be  my  task — a  task  not  to  be  evaded, 
to  adduce  evidence  in  proof  of  the  allegation  that  certain 
extensive  and  very  mischievous  illusions  affected  the 
Christianity  of  the  ancient  church;  nevertheless,  the  very 
men  whose  example  must  now  be  held  up  as  a  caution, 
M'ere,  many  of  them,  Christians  not  less  than  ourselves, 
r.ay,  some  of  the  most  deluded  by  particular  errors,  were 
eminent  Christians.  Nothing  is  easier  (or  more  edifying, 
in  the  inference  it  carries)  than  to  adduce  instances  of 
exalted  virtue,  piety,  constancy,  combined  with  what  all 
must  now  admit  to  have  been  an  infatuated  attachment 
to  pernicious  errors.  Yet  may  our  brethren  of  the  early 
churcli  well  challenge  our  respect  as  well  as  affection: 
for  theirs  was  tlie  fervour  of  a  steady  faith  in  things  un- 
seen and  eternal;  theirs  a  meek  patience  and  humility, 
under  the  most  grievous  wrongs;  theirs  the  courage  to 
maintain  a  good  profession  before  the  frowning  face  of 
philosophy,  of  secular  tyranny,  and  of  splendid  super- 
stition;  theirs  was  abstractedness  from  the  world,  and  a 
painful  self-denial;  theirs  the  most  arduous  and  costly 
labours  of  love;  theirs  a  munificence  in  charity,  altoge- 
7 


70     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

ther  without  example;  theirs  was  a  reverent  and  scrupu- 
lous care  of  the  sacred  writings,  and  this  merit,  if  tliey 
had  had  no  other,  is  of  a  superlative  degree,  and  should 
entitle  them  to  the  veneration  and  grateful  regards  of  the 
modern  church.  How  little  do  many  readers  of  the  Bi- 
ble, now-a-days,  think  of  what  it  cost  the  Christians  of 
the  second  and  third  centuries,  merely  to  rescue  and 
hide  the  sacred  treasure  from  the  rage  of  the  heathen ! 

AVhile,  as  yet,  every  thing  in  the  church,  and  in  the 
world,  was  precisely  what  the  Lord  had  given  them 
reason  to  look  for,  while  Christians  were  still  a  rescued 
Ijand — sheep  among  wolves,  and  were,  many  of  tliem, 
literally,  pilgrims  and  strangers  upon  earth,  cast  out  of 
the  bosom  of  the  state,  and  driven  from  the  social  circle ; 
while,  as  yet,  those  uidooked  for  and  inexplicable  events 
had  not  taken  place  which  have  so  much  staggered  the 
faith  of  later  Christians;  while  the  near  coming  of  their 
Lord  was  firmly  expected,  and  while  nothing  had  hap- 
pened of  which  he  had  not  given  his  people  an  intima- 
tion; then,  and  during  that  fresh  morning  hour  of  the 
church,  there  belonged  to  the  followers  of  Christ,  gene- 
rally, a  fulness  of  faith  in  the  realities  of  the  unseen 
world,  such  as,  in  later  ages,  has  been  reached  only  by 
a  very  few  eminent  and  meditative  individuals;  the  thou- 
sand then  felt  a  persuasion  which  now  is  felt  only  by 
the  two  or  three.    In  later  and  analogous  seasons  of  per- 
secution, if  there  may  have  been  a  similar  confidence  in 
the  bosoms  of  the  many,  it  lias  been  disturbed  by  some 
mixed  sentiments.     Questions  of  doctrine  or  points  of 
ecclesiastical  right,  have  ruffled,  at  least,  the  spirits,  or 
soured  the  temper  of  the  suffering  party.     But  the  lirst 
persecutions  were  the  manifested  rage  of  Satan  and  of 
his  ministers,  against  Christ  and  his  people.    liati-r  per- 
secutions have  been,  in  some  degree,  struggles  of  pai'iies. 


UPON  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  71 

alternately  ascendant,  and  both  claiming  to  act  for  Christ. 
Nero,  Domilian,  Galerius,  Diocletian,  acted  in  their  pro- 
per guise;  but  Ximenes,  Ferdinand,  Mary,  Bonner, 
glozed  their  atrocities  under  colour  of  evangelic  zeal,  and, 
perhaps  even  the  arrogance  of  th.eir  pretensions,  and 
their  sophistry,  abated  the  comfort  and  courage  of  many 
a  martyr. 

Those  who,  in  terror  of  Rome,  and  her  lying  tradi- 
tions, may  wish  to  lay  the  axe,  as  they  think,  to  the 
root  of  the  tree,  and  to  disclaim,  in  every  sense,  and  lo 
renounce  dependence  upon,  and  appeal  to,  those  extra 
canonical  documents  of  Christianity  which  have  come 
down  lo  us  from  the  early  and  apostolic  churches,  may 
make  the  attempt,  if  they  please,  but  they  must  soon 
find  themselves  standing  upon  ground  on  which  still 
greater  difficulties  than  those  they  run  from,  are  in  their 
way.  We  cannot,  if  we  would,  cut  ourselves  off  from 
the  benefits  which  the  singular  providence  of  God  has 
secured  for  later  times,  in  the  preservation  of  the  various 
memorials  of  the  early  and  intervening  ages.  On  this 
point  I  very  forcibly  feel  that  the  inconsiderate  and 
sweeping  measures  which  some  would  recommend, 
must,  if  adopted,  leave  us  our  work  to  do  over  again, 
not  only  in  the  present  argument,  but  in  our  controversy 
with  popery.  I  cannot,  therefore,  advance  without  en- 
deavouring to  make  good  my  footing  on  this  particular 
spot. 

All  mystification  apart,  as  well  as  a  superstitious  and 
overweening  deference  to  antiquity,  nothing  can  be  more 
simple  than  the  facts  on  which  rests  the  legitimate  use 
and  value  of  the  ancient  documents  of  Christianity,  con- 
sidered as  the  repositories  of  those  practices  and  opi- 
nions which,  obscurely  or  ambiguously  alluded  to  in  the 
canonical  writings,  are  found,  drawn  forth  and  illustrated, 


72     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

in  the  records  of  the  times  immediately  succeeding. 
These  records  contain  at  once  a  testimony  in  behalf  of 
the  capital  articles  of  our  faith,  and  an  exposition  of 
minor  sentiments  and  ecclesiastical  usages,  neither  of 
which  can  be  surrendered  without  some  serious  loss  and 
damage. 

How  plain  is  the  case  before  us  (putting  now  aside 
the  momentous  testimony  of  the  martyr  church  in  behalf 
of  fundamental  truths.)  It  must  be  admitted  that  all 
things  are  not  amply  and  indubitably  laid  down  in  the 
apostolic  writings;  and,  in  a  few  instances,  this  indeter- 
niinateness,  or  inconclusiveness  of  the  canonical  books, 
affects  particulars  in  which  we  fain  must  make  a  practi- 
cal choice,  and  must  adopt  either  one  course  or  its  op- 
posite. Now,  what  had  in  fact  been  done,  or  recom- 
mended, or  allowed  by  tlie  apostles,  in  the  churches  they 
personally  founded,  or  governed,  could  not  but  be  tho- 
roughly known  in  those  churches  during  the  lapse  of  a 
generation  or  two;  say,  at  the  least,  forty  years.  But 
we  possess  the  various  writings  of  the  men  of  the  ap- 
proximate generation,  and  therein  find,  as  is  natural,  di- 
versified statements,  and  innumerable  allusions  to  prac- 
tices and  to  opinions  universally  admitted,  as  of  apos- 
tolic origin.  Let  us  sift  this  evidence  as  we  may,  and 
it  demands,  as  we  shall  see,  to  be  severely  sifted ;  and 
let  it  be  reduced  to  the  smallest  possible  amount,  yet 
there  remains  what  no  man  in  his  senses  can  deny  to  be 
a  mass  of  good  historical  evidence,  touching  such  or 
such  points  of  apostolic  Christianity.  Shall  we,  then, 
listen  to  this  evidence,  or,  at  the  impulse  of  some  inex- 
plicable qualm,  resolve  not  to  hear  a  word  of  it?  Or, 
are  we,  in  fact,  so  destitute  of  historical  acumen,  as  to 
render  it  a  hopeless  task  to  discern  between  the  genuine 
and  the  spurious,  in  tliis  body  of  materials  ?     And  so,  in 


UPON  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  73 

matlers  of  exposition,  how  lightly  soever  we  may  esteem 
the  judgment  of  the  ancient  commentators,  they  pos- 
sessed, at  the  least,  (or  many  of  them)  a  vernacular  fa- 
miliarity with  the  canonical  phraseology,  to  which  it  is 
arrogant  and  absurd  not  to  pay  a  respectful  attention. 
Shall  the  men  of  eighteen  hundred  years  hence — the 
critics  and  professors  of  the  universities  of  Australia  and 
New  Zealand — pretend  to  understand  the  language  and 
idioms  of  the  divines  of  the  seventeenth  century  far  bet- 
ter than  we  do,  of  the  nineteenth? 

We  may,  and  undoubtedly  do,  possess  a  critical  ap- 
paratus such  as  gives  us,  in  certain  respects,  an  advan- 
tage over  even  Origen,  Jerome,  Basil,  Theodoret,  and 
Chrysostom;  nevertiieless  they,  as  actually  speaking 
and  writing,  or  as  being  familiar  with,  the  language  of 
the  New  Testament,  surely  possessed  prerogatives  that 
can  never  be  reasonably  denied,  any  more  than  snatched 
from  them.  Origen  may  have  been  wrong  in  a  hundred 
instances,  or  in  more;  but  he  read  the  gospels  and 
epistles  so  as  we  can  never  do,  with  the  fresh  familiarity, 
and  the  idiomatic  contact  proper  to  the  perusal  of  writings 
in  one's  own  language,  and  less  than  two  hundred  years 
old;  that  is  to  say,  precisely  as  we  are  now  reading  Til- 
lotson,  Jeremy  Taylor,  Barrow,  and  Baxter.  The  mo- 
dern spirit  of  self-sufficiency,  seems  to  me  to  reach  its 
climax  in  the  affected  contempt  thrown  upon  those  who, 
endowed  with  as  much  learning  and  acumen  as  our- 
selves, read  tlie  scriptures  while  the  ink  of  the  apostolic 
autographs  had  hardly  faded. 

To  the  early  church  also  belongs  the  signal  and  una- 
lienable advantage  of  having  expressed  its  sense  of  Chris- 
tian principles,  previously  to  those  perturbations  of  the 
spiritual  atmosphere  that  arose  from  the  great  contro- 
7* 


74     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

versies  of  the  fourth  century,  and  which  left  nothing  al^- 
together  in  its  unsophisticated  condition.  Whatever  of 
precision  or  explicitness  in  doctrine  might  be  the  fruit  of 
those  controversies,  tliere  still  attaches,  as  their  charac- 
teristic, to  the  pristine  writers,  a  plain  and  unimpaired 
straight-forwardness,  which  iias  its  peculiar  charm,  as 
well  as  value.  Less  logical,  we  grant,  and  less  theolo* 
gical,  and  less  acute,  and  less  subtle,  and  sometimes,  as 
I  shall  have  occasion  to  show,  involved  in  worse  errors, 
the  earlier  writers  are  more  calm  and  more  refreshing 
than  the  later,  and  sooner  win  our  affection,  if  they  do 
not  (which  is  certain)  secure  our  confidence. 

There  is,  hov/ever,  a  still  closer  dealing  with  the  uses 
and  claims  of  the  early  Christian  literature,  to  which  the 
controversies  moved  by  the  Oxford  writers  make  it  ne»- 
cessary  accurately  to  attend;  and,  in  fact,  it  has  already 
become,  or  must  soon  become,  a  duty,  in  no  way  to  be 
'evaded  by  the  leaders  of  opinion  among  the  ministers  of 
religion,  so  to  apply  their  minds  to  this  subject  as  to  at- 
tain a  well  defined  and  permanent  conviction,  such  as 
may  guide  their  decisions  on  trying  occasions,  which 
are  not  very  unlikely  to  arise. 

Let  us,  then,  first  state  the  case  of  those  who,  taking 
\ip  the  (modfern)  protestant  pass-word,  in  its  utmost  ex- 
tent of  meaning — "  The  Bible  and  the  Bible  alone  " — 
would  fain  cut  themselves  off  from  all  connexion  witli 
every  intermediate  record,  as  well  as  with  every  remote 
community  of  Christians.  "  If  I  have  the  word  of  God 
itself  in  my  hands,  wliich  is  able  to  make  me,  and  all, 
wise  unto  salvation,  what  is  antiquity  to  me?" — thus 
speak  many;  but  witli  how  much  reason,  remains  to  be 
inquired. 

If  it  did  not  I'requently  happen  that  vague  impressions, 
the  grounds  of  which  have  iiever  been  examined,  are 


UPON  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  75 

allowed  to  exert  an  influence,  not  only  over  the  un- 
thinking and  llie  uninformed,  but  over  the  educated  and 
the  intelligent,  there  could  be  no  need  to  dwell  for  a 
moment  upon  a  point  wliich,  like  the  one  now  before 
us,  barely  admits  of  what  deserves  to  be  called  argu- 
ment. And  yet,  even  if  I  might  otherwise  think  myself 
excused  from  the  seemingly  needless  task  of  making 
good  my  path  in  this  instance,  the  peculiar  character  of 
the  controversy  before  us  would  render  it  proper  to  do 
30.  Every  thing  turns  upon  the  clearness  and  sound- 
ness of  the  rule  which  is  to  be  established  in  regard  to 
the  extent  of  the  deference  due,  by  the  modern  church, 
to  the  ancient  church  ;  and  nothing  would  be  so  certainly 
fatal  to  the  principle  we  hope  to  substantiate,  as  to  un- 
derrate that  deference,  in  any  such  way  as  must  leave 
our  position  liable  to  just  and  important  exceptions. 

With  all  the  brevity  possible  I  will  propound  the  case, 
which,  in  fact,  has  often  been  appealed  to;  and  will  do 
so  in  the  convenient  form  of  question  and  rejoinder,  the 
interrogatories  being  put  by  a  supposed  protestant  advo- 
cate of  antiquity,  to  one  whose  protestantism  appears  to 
be  somewhat  extreme,  or  inconsiderate:  as  thus: — 

"  We  possess,  by  the  divine  favour,  the  word  of  God, 
able,  as  we  both  allow,  and  able  by  itself,  that  is  to  say, 
apart  from,  and  independently  of,  any  other  writings  or 
traditions,  to  make  men  wise  unto  salvation:  but  I  have 
two  questions  to  put,  and  first,  whence,  proximately,  did 
you  receive  this  inestimable  gift?" 

"  From  those  who,  before  me,  by  the  same  divine 
goodness,  had  possessed  and  loved  it:  and,  of  course, 
they,  in  like  manner,  from  their  predecessors  in  the  faith 
and  hope  of  the  gospel;  and  so  from  the  first." 

"  The  Bible,  then,  is  not  sent  to  us,  individually,  from 
heaven;  but  has  been  consigned,  like  all  other  books, 


76     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

nay,  on  the  very  same  conditions  as  profane  literature, 
to  the  hands  of  successive  generations ;  that  is  to  say,  it 
has  been  transmitted  from  fathers  to  sons,  and  is,  itself, 
in  this  sense,  a  tradition:  and,  fully  agreed,  as  doubt- 
less we  are,  as  to  the  mere  facts  of  the  mode  and  cir- 
cumstances of  this  continuous  delivery  of  the  scriptures, 
we  may  well  unite,  first,  in  gratitude  to  God,  whose  pro- 
vidence has  so  watched  over  his  written  word,  as  that  it 
has  not  merely  been  conserved,  througli  long  periods  of 
confusion  and  ignorance,  but  has  come  down  to  us  purer, 
and  more  copiously  verified,  as  to  the  integrity  of  the 
text,  than  any  other  collection  of  ancient  writings;  but 
we  may,  also,  as  I  presume,  unite  in  a  grateful  and  af- 
fectionate sentiment  toward  those  to  whose  industry, 
from  age  to  age,  and  to  whose  constancy  and  courage,  at 
particular  seasons,  we  are  immediately  indebted  for  tlie 
preservation  of  the  inspired  volume.  Tims  far  you  will 
admit,  witli  me,  the  obligation  of  the  modern  church  to 
the  ancient  church?" 

"Assuredly:  my  feelings  towards  those  who,  from 
age  to  age,  have  tiius  kept  and  handed  down  the  precious 
deposite,  are  precisely  analogous  to  those  of  a  poor  be- 
liever upon  whom  a  more  opulent  brother  in  Christ  be- 
stows a  Bible:  he  thanks  the  charitable  donor;  but  he 
does  not  so  misunderstand  his  obligation  as  to  surrender 
a  particle  of  his  Christian  liberty  and  conscience  to  his 
benefactor.  Come  to  us  whence  it  may,  the  word  of 
God  is  absolutely  independent  of  the  medium  of  its 
transmission  from  age  to  age.  'I'he  pearl  of  great  price 
may  have  traversed  some  stormy  seas,  but  it  has  actually 
reached  our  shores,  and  we  have  acquitted  our  obliga- 
tion towards  those  who,  at  the  peril  of  their  lives,  have 
brought  it,  when  we  just  thank  them.,  and  say  good 
morrow." 


UPON  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  77 

"  Thus  far,  then,  there  appears  no  ground  of  disa- 
greement between  us.  But  I  have  now  to  put  my  second 
question;  and,  well-informed  as  you  are  on  all  points  of 
biblical  criticism  and  of  literary  history,  I  shall  be  in  no 
danger  of  shaking  your  religious  convictions  by  pro- 
pounding my  difficulty.  On  what  ground,  then,  do  you 
receive  the  Bible,  collectively,  or  its  prophets,  histories, 
gospels,  and  epistles,  severally,  as  indeed  the  word  of 
God?  The  inspired  pages  do  not  shine  out  with  any 
supernatural  splendour,  nor  do  the  writers  always  afhrm 
their  own  canonicity;  or  even  if  they  do,  there  are  spu- 
rious writings  that  contain  equivalent  asseverations  of 
divine  authority,  to  wit,  the  Clementine  Constitutions, 
and  many  others,  as  you  need  not  be  told.  Or  if  we 
think  of  the  collection,  as  a  whole,  it  is  no  where  made 
up,  and  catalogued,  within  the  book  itself.  Now,  I  will 
anticipate  all  tiiat  part  of  your  reply  to  my  question 
which  must  refer  to  the  customary,  and,  as  I  grant,  un- 
impeachable internal  evidences  of  the  genuineness  of  the 
books  of  scripture,  severally,  and  concerning  which  we 
should  have  no  difference  of  opinion.  The  whole  of 
that  critical  history  of  scripture,  by  which  it  is  proved, 
beyond  possibility  of  doubt,  (concerning  most  of  the 
books,)  that,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  phrase,  they 
are  genuine,  is  known  to  both  of  us,  and  is  assented  to 
by  both;  and  it  is  farther  admitted,  in  common,  that  the 
proof  of  the  antiquity  and  genuineness  of  the  books  of 
the  canon  involves,  by  a  sound  historical  and  logical  in- 
ference, their  divine  authority,  or  inspiration,  leaving  us 
in  no  doubt  whether  or  not  they  exhibit  the  will  of  the 
Lord,  to  which  we  owe  absoliUe  and  implicit  submis- 
sion, in  faith  and  practice. 

"  But  now,  before  I  reach  my  ultimate  position,  I  re- 
quest you  not  altogether  to  overlook  the  incidental,  and 


78     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

yet  ineffably  important  service  that  has  been  rendered  to 
the  modern  church  by  the  ancient  church,  or,  let  us  say, 
the  long  series  of  Christian  writers,  who,  in  tlieir  copi- 
ous, and,  for  the  most  part,  exact  quotations  of  scrip- 
ture, and  by  their  reverent  manner  of  appealing  to  it, 
have  afforded  the  amplest  means,  first,  of  tracking  the 
very  text  of  scripture,  whole  and  entire,  up  from  age  to 
age,  as  the  very  same  text  (various  readings  allowed  for) 
which  we  now  read,  and  so  as  to  exempt  us  from  all 
reasonable  anxiety  concerning  this  text;  and,  secondly, 
of  ascertaining  particular  readings^  with  a  degree  of 
assurance  which,  otherwise,  would  not  have  been  at- 
tainable. See,  then,  as  well  the  extent  of  our  obliga- 
tions to  our  Christian  predecessors,  as  tlie  intimacy,  and 
the  incalculable  importance  of  that  constant  correspon- 
dence which  the  church  must  hold  with  the  extant  re- 
mains of  Christian  literature.  AVill  you  look  at  the 
facts  of  the  case,  and  then  dare  to  say,  as  some  do,  *  I 
hold  the  Bible,  and  I  care  nothing  for  antiquity:  the  fa- 
thers !  let  them  fall,  one  and  all,  into  the  hands  of  ano- 
ther Omar.'    Does  your  protestantism  go  to  this  length  ?" 

— "  Need  you  ask  it  ?  Who  that  is  ever  so  moderately 
informed  in  such  matters  can  deny,  or  can  wish  to  dis- 
parage the  critical  use  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  Church 
writers  1  The  aids  they  afford  are,  I  grant,  of  inesti- 
mable value  ;  but  I  can  allow  all  this,  and  yet  hold  them, 
one  and  all,  very  cheap  as  authorities  in  doctrine,  or  as 
expounders  of  scripture,  or  as  examples  in  practice;  and 
you  do  not  forget  that,  in  the  sense  of  which  we  are  now 
speaking,  an  heretical  father  serves  us,  to  the  full,  as 
good  a  turn  as  an  orthodox  one,  and  that  the  schismatic 
Novatian  is  as  available  an  authority  for  establishing  a 
reading,  as  the  orthodox  Athanasius." 

— '*  This  admission  does  not  appear  to  touch  the  point 


JUPON  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH,  79 

in  debate  ;  but  would  it  not  sorely  grieve  many  a  stanch 
protestant  to  hear  you  attribute  so  much  importance, 
even  as  this,  to  those  whom  they  have  been  taught  to 
think  of  only  as  the  parents  and  abettors  of  popery? 
They  would  insinuate,  I  think,  tliat  it  might  be  well  to 
look  out  for  some  more  thorough-going  champion  of  the 
good  cause.  Let  this,  however,  pass:  you  divine  what 
I  next  intend.  After  we  have  allowed  all  the  force  that 
can  be  claimed  for  it,  to  that  method  of  proof  which, 
looking  solely  to  the  text  of  an  ancient  autlior,  as  it  is 
in  itself,  and  to  the  literary  history  of  the  book,  esta- 
blishes its  genuineness,  will  you  affirm  that  we  want 
nothing  more  in  deciding  the  all-important  questions  that 
arise  concerning  a  particular  book,  or  epistle,  whether 
it  be  canonical  and  a  part  of  God's  word  or  not?  Let 
us  assume  the  instance  of  the  second  epistle  of  Peter. 
The  antiquity  of  the  writing  is,  to  a  certain  point,  clearly 
ascertained,  and,  moreover,  a  nice  examination  of  its 
style  and  recondite  peculiarities,  well  supports  the  belief 
that  it  is  what  it  professes  to  be;  and  that  it  may  safely 
be  appealed  to  in  support  of  doctrines  and  duties.  But 
is  the  argument  in  this  particular  instance  concluded,  or 
is  there  no  other  consideration  which  ought  herein  to  be 
regarded  V 

— "I  know  what  you  intend;  but  rather  than  make 
my  answer  at  this  point,  I  request  you  to  state  your  in- 
tention fully.  I  will  then  reply  so  far  as  may  be  neces- 
sary to  save  my  protestant  principle." 

— "I  affirm  then  plainly,  Tliat,  whatever  sufficiency 
and  completeness  we  may  attribute  to  the  critical  proof 
of  the  genuineness  and  integrity  of  the  text  of  the  seve- 
ral books  of  scripture,  there  is  yet  a  link  in  the  chain  of 
argument  wanting,  and  this  link  is  supplied  by  nothing 


80     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

else  but  the  judgment  and  the  testimony  of  the  ancient 
church,  concerning  these  books,  individually,  that  they, 
and  not  others,  (although  sustained  by  specious  preten- 
sions,) were  the  productions  of  the  apostles,  and  had 
been,  from  the  first,  so  received  and  reverenced.  I  say, 
in  deciding  the  question  of  genuineness  or  spuriousness, 
or  in  discriminating,  for  instance,  between  the  gospel  of 
John,  and  the  acts  of  Peter,  or  in  distinguishing  among 
genuine  writings,  the  inspired  from  the  uninspired;  the 
epistles  of  Paul  from  those  of  Clement,  Polycarp,  and 
Ignatius;  we  are  thrown  upon  the  judgment  and  autho- 
rity of  the  early  church.  Notwithstanding  all  the  ex- 
ceptions that  have  been  urged  against  this  averment, 
when  advanced,  as  it  so  often  has  been,  by  the  advocates 
of  tradition,  and  notwithstanding  the  ill  use  which  has 
been  made  of  the  instance,  I  must  profess  to  think  that 
the  plain  fact  carries  with  it  an  unquestionable  and  im- 
portant inference  to  this  efTect,  namely.  That,  by  the 
mode  chosen  for  consigning  the  sacred  writings  to  after- 
times,  the  divine  providence  has  connected  the  later  with 
the  earlier  church,  by  a  link  which  can  never  be  severed, 
and  which  connexion  implies  a  general  duty  of  ac- 
quainting ourselves  with  the  records  of  the  early  church, 
and  of  yielding  such  a  specific  deference  to  its  testimo- 
ny and  judjiment,  as  is  not  to  be  claimed  for  the  church 
of  any  later  period.  Bring  the  principle  to  a  test  in  the 
instance,  already  named,  of  the  second  epistle  of  Peter: 
a  critical  examination  of  the  two  epistles  affords  what 
the  best  modern  biblists  have  regarded  as  full  and  satis- 
factory evidence  of  the  genuineness  of  the  latter.  But 
is  there  any  one  who,  in  order  to  give  proof  of  ius  con- 
fidence in  the  sufficiency  of  this  mode  of  argument, 
would  refuse  to  search  for  references  to  tlie  epistle,  in 


UPON  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  81 

the  early  writers  ?  None  would  do  so  ;  on  the  contra- 
ry, ii  is  with  a  lively  pleasure  that  we  find  this  epistle 
quoted  by  Clement,  Hermas,  Justin,  Athenagoras.  This 
then  is  the  second  head  of  argument,  or  kind  of  proof, 
available  in  the  case ;  and  it  is  such  as  to  leave  no  rea- 
sonable doubt  concerning  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  the 
epistle  in  the  age  of  those  writers,  or  of  its  reputed  au- 
thenticity. But  there  is  yet  a  third  argument,  proper  to 
the  subject,  and  this  consists  in  that  judgment  of  the 
whole  case  which  was  formed  by  the  learned  divines  of 
the  fourth  century,  who,  notwithstanding  the  doubts  en- 
tertained during  an  early  intermediate  period,  reviewed 
the  evidence,  and  admitted  the  epistle  into  the  canon.  Now 
not  only  do  we  assent  to  this  decision  as  a  sound  one; 
but,  even  if  we  are  not  absolutely  dependent  upon  it, 
for  our  own  opinion,  on  so  important  an  occasion,  we 
are  yet  deeply  indebted  to  those  who  thus  anticipated  the 
cri7ica/ decision  of  modern  scholars;  for  (let  it  be  re- 
membered) had  these  divines  otherwise  determined,  and 
had  they  actually  excluded  t'ne  epistle  from  the  list  of 
inspired  v/riiings,  even  if  it  had  come  down  to  us  at  all, 
the  task  would  have  been  one  of  great  difficulty  and  anx- 
ety,  to  have  replaced  it  in  the  canon  by  mere  force  of  cri- 
ticism. And  it  is  very  doubtful  whether,  so  sustained,  it 
would  have  won  the  assent  of  the  church  at  large  :  a  much 
more  probable  event  would  have  been  its  resting  to  the  end 
of  time,  under  a  ban,  as  apocryphal ;  and  thus  would  the 
church  of  all  ages  have  been  mulct  of  much  edification, 
and  moreover  deprived  of  certain  points  of  belief  which 
rest  exclusively  upon  affirmations  contained  in  that 
epistle." 

*'Be  it  so:  but,  without  staying  to  contest  the  point 
with  you,  as  to  the  relative  or  absolute  importance  that 
8 


82     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

attaches  to  this  third  branch  of  the  argument,  concern- 
ing the  genuineness  and  canonicity  of  the  books  of 
scripture,  I  may  easily  grant  to  you  the  general  utiliti/ 
of  a  reference  to  antiquity,  07i  this  single  groundr 
without  compromising  my  great   principle,   the   Bible 

alone." 

— '<  Nay,  you  cannot  grant  so  much  as  this,  without, 
on  the  one  hand,  breaking  in  upon,  and  offending  the 
self-sufficient  presumption  of  a  large  and  forward  class 
of  proteslants,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  implying  all  that 
I  am  now  careful  to  secure,  namely,  a  deference,  as 
cautious  and  discriminating  as  you  please,  due  by  the 
modern  church,  to  the  ancient  ciiurch.  I  affirm  that  the 
Lord  himself,  by  that  very  arrangement  which  has 
thrown  so  much  importance  upon  the  testimony  and 
JUDGMENT  of  the  pastors  and  divines  of  the  early  ages,. 
in  the  matter  of  the  discrimination  of  the  inspired 
writings,  has  virtually  constituted  them,  to  a  limited  ex- 
tent, our  masters;  or,  at  the  least,  has  virtually  forbidden 
the  attempt  to  sever  ourselves  from  then\.  Nevertheless, 
and  this  I  most  readily  grant  you,  there  are  urgent  rea- 
sons, and  more  than  enough,  for  exercising  the  utmost 
possible  caution  in  yielding  this  due  deference,  in  each 
single  instance  in  which  it  may  be  challenged." 

But  I  must  insist  with  some  strenuousness  upon  the 
general  inference  1  am  wishing  to  derive  from  the  plain 
fact  of  our  dependence,  in  so  momentous  an  instance, 
upon  the  judgment,  fidelity,  and  discretion,  of  the  pri- 
mitive church.  Consequences,  affecting  every  part  of 
the  present  controversy,  flow  from  the  principle  which 
this  inference  involves,  and,  as  I  think,  it  very  clearly 
excludes  the  extreme  opinions,  as  well  of  the  upholders. 


UPON  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  83 

BS  of  the  impngners  of  the  authority  of  antiquity.  I 
very  well  know  that  indeterminate  conclusions,  such  as 
the  one  now  in  view  must  be  at  the  best,  may  easily  be 
spurned  by  an  opponent,  as  unworthy  of  his  serious  re- 
gard: be  it  so:  I  am  not  just  now  thinking  of  what  a  de- 
termined adversary,  or  rigorous  disputant,  may  choose  to 
allege ;  but  rather  am  offering  considerations  to  one  whom 
I  suppose  to  be  willing  to  listen  to  whatever  may  appear 
to  deserve  the  regard  of  a  religious  mind  ;  whether  or 
not  it  may  be  available  in  a  formal  and  categorical  argu- 
ment. 

Listen,  then,  to  me  w^ith  a  little  indulgence;  and  those 
■need  not  listen  at  all  who  can  afford  none.  All  will  agree 
that  the  settlement  of  the  question  of  canonicity,  or  the 
divine  authority  of  each  book,  alleged  to  bear  this  sacred 
character,  is  one  of  primary  and  unspeakable  import- 
ance ;  it  is  the  preliminary  of  our  faith  and  duty;  nor 
can  it  be  supposed  that  we  attach  more  importance  to  the 
subject  than  is  attached  to  it  by  the  Lord  himself,  who 
will  neither  give  his  honour  to  another,  nor  lightly  allow 
the  honour  belonging  to  his  authentic  word  to  be  shared 
hy  spurious  compositions.  It  is  also  clear  that  such  a 
formal  announcement  of  the  canonical  writings  might 
have  been  given  (as,  for  example,  in  an  undoubted  final 
epistle  of  the  last  surviving  apostle,)  as  should  altogether 
have  superseded  either  any  reference,  on  our  part,  to  the 
judgment  of  the  early  church,  or  any  exercise  of  that 
judgment.  On  the  other  side,  it  might  so  have  been, 
that  several  apparently  apostolic  writings  had  descended 
from  the  apostolic  age,  having  such  internal  recommeu" 
dations  as  would  have  made  the  task  of  discrimination, 
in  later  times,  hopelessly  difScult ;  in  which  case,  we 
should  have  been  thrown,  without  appeal,  upon  the  de- 
cisions of  antiquity. 


84     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

But  neither  of  tliese  tliincrs  has  happened  to  lis  ;  and 
instead  of  either,  we  find  ourselves  placed  under  an 
economy,  in  this  particular  respect,  which,  in  a  very 
significant  manner,  blends  the  conditions  of  dependence 
and  independence.  We  cannot  but  refer  to,  and  avail 
ourselves  of,  the  judgment  and  final  decision  of  the 
early  church,  concerning  the  canonicily  of  each  portion 
of  the  New  Testament;  and  yet  this  decision  is  not  our 
only  resource.  Farlhermore,  the  two  lines  of  proof  do 
(and  in  the  opinion  of  the  best  modern  scholars)  so  coin- 
cide, as  wonderfully  to  authenticate  each  other.  In  each 
instance  the  literary,  or  internal  evidence,  is  such  as  to 
win  our  approval  of  the  judgment  of  antiquity;  and 
again  the  judgment  of  antiquity  lias  neither  presented  to 
us,  finally,  any  book  which  the  internal  evidence  disal- 
lows, nor  has  it  pronounced  against  any  extant  book, 
which  that  evidence  might  have  allowed.  The  result 
is — a  rational  and  firm  assurance,  more  or  less  entire  in 
each  instance,  that  the  New  Testament  is  constituted  of, 
and  includes,  the  divinely  inspired  apostolic  writings. 

Thus  then  are  we,  and  all  believers  to  the  end  of  lime, 
connected  with  the  pristine  church,  by  an  indissoluble 
and  vital  cord.  Yet  are  we  not  bound  to  it  servilely. 
Our  relation  is  that  of  pupilage,  not  of  bondage.  We 
inherit  as  sons;  we  do  not  occupy  as  serfs;  our  highest 
interests  have  been  at  the  disposal  of  our  predecessors  ; 
but  have  not  been  subjected  to  an  unconditional  despot- 
ism. We  can  no  more  shake  off  our  dependence  to  the 
extent  which  it  legitimately  reaches,  than  the  inheritor 
of  an  entail  can  dispose  of  his  real  estate  as  he  may  of 
his  personals.  In  relation  to  this  point,  we  are  neither 
indulged  with  tlie  liberty  whicli  the  wilfulness  of  our 
nature  so  fondly  seeks  for ;  nor  are  we  so  fettered  as  the 


UPON  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  85 

sullen  advocates  of  despotism  would  wish:  and,  placed 
as  we  are,  it  is  equally  a  fault  to  spurn  authority,  or  to 
cringe  before  it. 

Now  I  must  think  that  our  position  in  this  particular 
instance  imbodies  a  general  principle,  applicable  to  most 
of  the  perplexing  questions  now  agitated,  or  likely  to  be 
brought  under  discussion;  and  it  is  in  this  belief  that  I 
so  much  urge  the  consideration  of  it.     In  many  of  those 
cases  in  which  the  ambiguous,  or  incomplete  language 
of  the  inspired  writers,  in  incidentally  alluding  to  points 
of  discipline  or  faith,  has  given  rise  to  schismatic  diver- 
sities of  opinion,  we  are  (as  in  the  question  of  the  canon) 
by  necessity  thrown  upon  the  testimony  and  judgment 
of  the  early  church ;  but  yet  are  not  thrown  tiiereupon 
helplessly,  or  without  opportunity  of  appeal  to  collateral 
arguments.     Thus,  in  regard  to  the  principle  of  the  in- 
herited and  transmitted  clerical  authority,  there  is  a  se- 
rious practical  meaning  in  the  principle  ;    nevertheless 
the  existence  of  Christianity  in  the  world,  or  in  any  par- 
ticular country,  is  by  no  means  so  involved  in  it  as  that, 
in  the  event  of  an  accidental  rupture  of  the  chain  of  or- 
dination, there  could  be  no  more  faith  or  holiness  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,  or  in  this  or  that  region,  until  a  new 
investiture  had  been  sent  down  from  heaven,  and  mira- 
culously attested.     A  single  bible,  thrown  ashore  from  a 
wreck,  might,  as  I  will  not  doubt,  become  the  seed  of  a 
true  church,  in  the  midst  of  a  heretofore  atheistic  com- 
nmnity.      Nevertheless  such  a  new   and  extraordinary 
germination  of  the  tree  of  life  would  by  no  means  inva- 
lidate the  general  doctrine  (rationally  held)  of  the  minis- 
terial succession.     A  real  dependence,  but  not  a  slavish, 
or  abject,  or  hopeless  dependence,  is,  as  I  think,  the 
LAW  of  the  spiritual  economy. 
8* 


86     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

But  whatever  demur  may  be  raised  against  the  alleged 
authority  of  the  ancient  church  in  matters  of  opinion, 
and  in  cases  where  the  first  Christians  were  as  liable  to 
error  as  ourselves,  it  is  clearly  impracticable  to  exclude 
their  testimony  as  to  matters  of  fact ;  and  the  operation 
of  this  testimony  extends,  I  think,  rather  farther  than 
some  appear  willing  to  admit.  It  is  easy  to  find  illus- 
trations, real  and  imaginary,  of  the  deference  which  (all 
superstitious  affection  apart)  common  sense,  and  the 
universally  admitted  principles  of  historical  criticism, 
compel  us  to  yield  in  such  cases. 

The  epistles,  for  example,  contain  allusions,  either 
very  slight,  or  actually  ambiguous,  to  many  matters  of 
usage,  some  of  them  altogether  unimportant  to  ourselves, 
and  others  so  connected  with  discipline,  worship,  govern- 
ment, or  even  doctrine,  as  to  render  it,  to  say  the  least, 
highly  desirable  to  know  just  so  much  more  as  may  serve 
to  exclude  controversy  on  the  subject.  Now,  and  as 
might  have  been  expected,  the  very  same  points  are 
either  alluded  to,  or  are  explicitly  defined  by  the  Chris- 
tian writers  of  the  next  generation,  or  of  the  next  age. 
It  would  have  been  strange  indeed  if  it  had  not  been 
so;  and  equally  strange,  nay,  utterly  absurd,  were  it,  if 
we  were  to  refuse  to  avail  ourselves  of  the  aid  of  this 
subsidiary  evidence,  so  far  as  it  may  fairly  be  resorted 
to.  Did  Paul  preach  the  gospel  in  these  islands?  a 
question  of  little  or  no  importance  to  British  Christians 
of  the  present  times,  and  yet  of  some  curiosity  :  and 
who  is  there  that  would  not  gladly  gratify  so  natural  a 
feeling,  if  the  means  of  doing  so  are  at  hand  in  tl.'e  ex- 
tant written  traditions  of  the  early  church?  Did  Peter 
preach  the  gospel  at  Rome;  or,  if  so,  did  he  found  and 
govern  the  church  there?  a  question  this  which  has  hap- 


UPON  THE  AXCIENT  CHURCH.  87 

pened  to  become  important,  and  which  we  must  take  the 
same  means,  if  ihey  be  within  our  reach,  for  determining. 

Now  either  in  the  one  instance,  or  the  other,  nothing 
can  be  less  pertinent  than  the  preclusive,  ultra-protestant 
outcry — "  Oh,  the  Bible,  and  the  Bible  alone  :  I  care 
nothing  for  what  cannot  be  proved  by  texts  of  scripture." 
We  may  easily  find  occasions  more  fit,  in  which  our 
zeal  for  the  honour  and  sufllciency  of  the  inspired  volume 
may  make  itself  heard.  Tlie  question  is  a  question  of 
fact;  and  as  such,  it  is  open  to  all  those  various  methods 
of  proof,  or  of  disproof,  which  are  ordinarily  had  re- 
course to  in  historical  inquiries.  It  might  pcasonably 
have  been  thought  that  not  a  word  could  have  been 
needed  in  making  good  so  simple  and  obvious  a  rule  of 
proceeding. 

Other  instances,  variously  affected  by  this  same  rule, 
or  coming  within  its  application  in  diff'erent  degrees, 
have  a  hundred  times,  and  especially  of  late,  been  ad- 
duced ;  and  some  of  these  will  present  themselves,  which 
demand  all  the  caution,  the  acumen,  and  the  diligence 
that  can  be  brought  to  bear  upon  them.  They  are,  how- 
ever, all  governed  by  a  general  practical  i)rinciple,  not 
very  difllcult  to  be  established  or  applied  (although  con- 
tested by  certain  parties)  and  it  is  this  first,  That  no  arti- 
cle of  worship,  discipline,  governm.ent,  or  opinion,  which, 
however  well  attested  as  belonging  even  to  the  apostolic 
churches  of  the  first  century,  is  no  where  alluded  to,  or 
enjoined,  in  the  inspired  scriptures,  can  be  binding 
upon  the  church  in  after-limes  ;  for  w-e  adhere  to  the 
belief,  and  on  this  very  ground  renounce  Romanism, 
that,  whatever  our  Lord  intended  to  be  of  permanent 
observance  in  his  church,  he  has  caused  to  be  included 
in  the  canonical  writings:   and,  secondly,  that  points  so 


88     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

attested  as  ancient,  and  yet  very  slightly  or  ambiguously 
alluded  to  by  the  inspired  writers,  are  not  to  be  regarded 
as  of  prime  necessity,  or  insisted  upon  as  conditions  of 
communion.  The  reason  of  \\\e  first  part  of  our  gene- 
ral principle  carries  with  it  this  second ;  for  we  may  re- 
ligiously believe  thai  all  points,  at  once  of  great  moment» 
and  of  universal  application,  are  so  affirmed  in  scripture 
as  to  carry  the  convictions  of  every  humble  and  docile 
mind. 

T  shall  have  occasion,  once  and  again,  in  the  following 
pages,  to  quote  tliat  favourite  of  the  Romanists,  and,  as 
it  seems,  of  the  Oxford  'I'ract  writers,  Vincent  of  Lerins, 
and  therefore  will  not  cite  him  here,  on  a  merely  inci- 
dental point;  otherwise  it  would  be  easy  to  obtain  his 
explicit  sanction  to  both  parts  of  the  rule  now  stated. 
In  truth,  1  would  not  scruple  to  refer  the  controversy,  as 
to  its  principles,  between  the  church  of  Rome,  and  our- 
selves, lo  liie  sole  arbitration  of  this  very  writer.  How 
can  Romanists  dare  ai)peal  lo  him,  except  on  the  pre- 
sumption that  their  oj>ponents  will  never  know  more  of 
him  than  is  contained  in  the  passages  tliey  may  please 
to  adduce?  I  would  even  venture  to  argue  the  present 
questions  before  the  same  arbiter,  and  abide  by  his  deci- 
sion, fairly  taken.      But  to  return. — 

An  instance  often  adduced  in  this  connexion,  is  that 
of  the  religious  observance  of  the  lirst  day  of  the  week, 
which,  alter  we  liave  found  it  clearly,  though  not  copi- 
ously alluded  to  by  tlie  inspired  writers,  as  the  practice 
of  the  first  Christians,  is  sufhciently  proved,  by  subse- 
quent testimonies,  to  have  been  so  observed  by  those 
who  immediately  succeeded  them.  It  is  (not  to  mention 
here  the  more  general  grounds  of  argument)  a  well 
CONFIRMED  TRADITION,  taking  its  risc   in   the   apostolic 


UPON  THE  ANX'IENT  CHURCH.  89 

writings,  and  thence  onward  supported  by  unquestion- 
able evidence.  Those  must  create  a  difficulty,  who  find 
any  in  this  instance,  in  distinguishing  between  a  proper 
and  necessary  appeal  to  antiquity,  and  an  unwarrantable 
and  dangerous  deference  to  it.  The  religious  reason 
for  observing  the  Lord's  day  is,  that  the  apostles  them- 
selves, as  we  fully  believe,  observed  it,  and  sanctioned 
its  observance  in  all  the  churches  which  they  founded. 
The  historic  reason  for  believing  that  they  did  so,  is 
drawn  partly  from  the  two  or  three  allusions  to  this  ob- 
servance in  the  New  Testament;  and  partly,  we  might 
say  chiefly,  from  the  incidental  and  the  explicit  mention 
of  the  observance  by  the  early  Christian  writers,  as  well 
as  by  Pliny,  Plutarch,  and  others. 

If  we  imagine  ourselves  entirely  deprived  of  this  lat- 
ter portion  of  the  evidence  on  this  point,  it  must  be  ad- 
milted  that  the  argument  in  support  of  an  institution  so 
vitally  connected,  as  it  is  found  to  be,  with  the  very  ex- 
istence of  religion  in  the  world,  would  be  reduced  to  a 
slender  and  precarious  inference,  or  argument  from  ana- 
logy. Here  then  we  are  absolutely  compelled,  and  those 
especially  who  are  rigid  more  than  others  in  tlieir  regard 
to  the  Lord's  day,  are  compelled  to  resort  to  the  aid  of 
ancient  usage,  as  recorded,  not  by  the  inspired,  but  by 
uninspired  writers:  and  we  may  well  appeal  to  the  can- 
dour of  such  persons,  and  ask  them,  whether,  when  con- 
tending witli  latitudinarians,  on  this  important  subject, 
they  would  not  eagerly  avail  themselves  of  any  new,  and 
still  more  explicit  testimony  concerning  the  usage  of  the 
churches  in  the  apostolic  age,  supposing  some  such  evi- 
dence, heretofore  overlooked,  were  now  suddenly  to  be 
discovered.  I  presume  that  they  would  do  so,  without 
allowing  any  qualm,  as  to  "  the  great  protestant  princi- 
ple," to  stand  in  their  way.     It  is  in  fact  a  circumstance 


90     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

worthy  to  be  noticed,  that  even  the  most  ultra-protestant 
of  ullra-protestaiits,  if  it  iiappens  to  him  to  meet  with  a 
real  or  apparent  confirmation  of  his  peculiar  views,  with- 
in the  circle  of  ecclesiastical  antiquity,  shows  no  reluc- 
tance whatever  in  snatching  at  it,  and  in  turning  it  to  the 
best  account  he  can,  piously  quoting  Irenaeus,  or  Tertul- 
lian,  or  Ignatius,  like  any  good  Romanist!  It  is — "  the 
Bible,  and  the  Bible  alone,"  just  when  the  evidence  af- 
forded, on  some  disputed  point,  by  the  writings  of  Ig- 
natius, or  Irenseus,  or  TertuUian,  happens  to  tell  in  the 
wrong  direction;  otherwise,  these  "  papistical  authori- 
ties "  are  good  enough. 

The  two  cases  then  that  have  here  been  adduced,  (and 
I  have  purposely  avoided  such  as  involve  controversy) 
seem,  as  I  tliink,  to  establish,  beyond  a  doubt,  all  that  I 
am  concerned  for  at  present;  and  which,  expressed  as 
broadly  and  inoffensively  as  possible,  amounts  to  this 
general  principle — That  it  is  as  impracticable,  as  it  would 
be  undesirable,  and  even  irreligious,  to  detach  ourselves 
from  all  dependence  upon  Christian  antiquity;  and  that, 
as  in  the  capital  and  foremost  article  of  the  antiquity, 
and  canonicity,  and  genuineness,  of  the  books  of  scrip- 
ture, so  in  various  matters  of  discipline,  worship,  go- 
vernment, and  doctrine,  nothing  else  can  be  done  by  the 
modern  church,  but  listen  (with  just  so  much  deference 
as  may  be  due)  to  the  testimony  and  judgment  of  the 
ancient  church. 

There  may  indeed  be  those  who  would  freely  avail 
themselves  of  the  evidence  of  antiquity  in  relation  to 
matters  of  fact,  while  they  would  be  extremely  jealous 
of  it,  or  totally  exclude  it,  in  relation  to  matters  of  opi- 
nion. Now  granting  that  the  distinction  between  facts 
and  opinions,  or  doctrines,  may  be  real,  and  pertinent 
too,  in  the  present  case,  yet  surely  no  one  can  forget 


UPON  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  91 

that  pure  matters  of  opinion,  or  doctrines,  become,  to 
all  intents,  matters  of  fact,  whenever  they  attach  to  large 
bodies  of  men,  or  communities,  for  a  length  of  time, 
and  are  customarily  professed,  and  perpetually  repeated. 
The  Mahometan  doctrines  of  the  unity  of  God,  and  of 
the  pleasures  of  paradise,  are  not  at  all  less  matters  of 
fact,  than  are  the  conquest  of  Syria,  or  of  Egypt,  by  the 
caliphs.  And  thus  it  is  tliat  the  faith  of  the  ancient 
church  may  be  ascertained,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  not  less 
easily,  or  less  certainly,  than  its  sufferings,  or  its  modes 
of  government,  or  its  spread,  in  this  or  tliat  country. 

Nor  is  the  ascertaining  of  such  facts,  whether  of 
usage,  or  of  doctrine,  so  perplexing,  or  so  ambiguous 
as  might  be  imagined;  for  as  Christianity,  instead  of  its 
having  been  cooped  up  in  Judea,  during  two  or  three 
generations,  instantly  pervaded  all  the  countries  around 
the  Mediterranean,  every  one  of  its  most  conspiciious 
elements  was  laid  open  to  the  observation  and  report  of 
unconnected  witnesses,  so  as  to  exclude,  not  merely  col- 
lusion in  rejj^ard  to  the  facts  so  reported,  but  in  regard  to 
the  preparation  of  the  evidence  which  has  come  down 
to  us.  In  the  most  unexceptionable  modes  of  proof,  we 
may  know  what  was  the  religious  system  of  the  Chris- 
tian societies  of  the  second  century,  throughout  the  coun- 
tries between  the  Euphrates  and  the  Atlantic,  and  be- 
tween the  deserts  of  Lybia  and  the  Danube. 

The  principle,  above  stated,  (in  whatever  terms  we 
may  choose  to  imbody  it)  while  it  consists  with  the  ge- 
neral laws  of  the  social  system,  and  is  in  harmony  with 
the  conditions  on  which  all  advancement  in  knowledge 
depends,  plainly  and  unavoidably  results  from  that  pe- 
culiar economy  under  which  the  Lord  himself  has  placed 
the  gospel  dispensation.  He  has  not  allowed  his  peo- 
ple, in  any  age,  the  undesirable  liberty  of  cutting  them- 


92     THE  DEPENDENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

selves  off  from  all  dependence  upon  their  predecessors, 
any  more  tlian  he  has  left  them  free  so  to  act,  as  if  iheir 
conduct,  as  Christians,  would  not  liave  an  influence  over 
the  religious  well-being  of  their  successors.  The  church 
is  one  church,  stretching  throughout  the  ages  that  are  to 
elapse  between  the  first,  and  the  second  advent. 

But  now  this  dependence  of  the  modern  church  upon 
the  ancient  Church,  has,  in  fact,  been  misunderstood, 
and  abused,  in  an  extreme  degree;  and,  moreover,  it  in- 
volves some  real  and  serious  difficulties  in  all  occasions 
of  controversy.  ^Vhat  then  renjains  to  be  done?  Not 
to  cut  the  knot  by  renouncing  tlie  dependence: — this  we 
are  not  free  to  do;  but,  and  there  is  no  alternative,  we 
are  summoned  to  exercise,  although  at  the  cost  of  pain- 
ful labours,  a  necessary  discriniination,  by  the  aid  of 
which  we  may  avail  ourselves,  without  abusing  it,  of  the 
TESTii^ioNY  and  judgment  of  the  ancient  church.  Some 
may  indeed  resent  this  alleged  necessity,  and  may  have 
recourse  to  various  expedients  to  evade  it;  but  their 
struggles  will  be  to  no  purpose  in  regard  to  the  cause 
they  wish  to  serve;  while  there  will  be  not  wanting  some, 
quick  to  perceive,  and  prompt  to  turn  to  their  advantage, 
the  argumentative  boon,  thus  unwisely  surrendered  to 
them.  It  has  been  nothing  so  much  as  this  inconside- 
rate "  liible  alone"  outcry,  that  has  given  modern  popery 
so  long  a  reprieve  in  the  heart  of  prolestant  countries; 
and  it  is  now  the  very  same  zeal,  without  discretion, 
that  opens  a  fair  field  for  tiie  spread  of  the  doctrines  of 
the  Oxford  Tracts. 

I  vent\ire,  then,  not  without  diffidence,  and  yet  with 
a  calm  confidence  in  the  soundness  of  the  course  I  am 
pursuing,  to  invite  those  who  already  feel  the  moment 
of  the  controversy  set  on  foot  by  the  writers  of  those 
tracts,  and  who  perceive  the  double  consequence  which 


UPON  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  93 

it  carries,  to  enter  upon  such  researches,  in  the  field  of 
Christian  antiquity,  as  may  be  found  requisite,  whether 
more  or  less  laborious,  for  obtaining  a  well-defined  con- 
viction as  to  the  extent  and  conditions  of  the  deference 
that  is  due  to  the  practices  and  opinions  of  the  early- 
church.  May  He  who  giveth  liberally,  and  without 
upbraiding,  as  well  wisdom  as  strength,  to  those  who 
are  conscious  that  both  must  be  given  from  above,  gra- 
ciously, in  this  instance,  aid  our  endeavours ! 


A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

OF  THE  AiNCIENT  CHURCH. 

So  far  as  we  may  have  in  view  the  usurpations  and 
the  lying  pretensions  of  Rome,  nothing  can  be  clearer 
than  the  course  to  be  pursued  by  protestants.  Such  and 
such  practices,  or  opinions,  and  in  which  popery  con- 
sists, may  be  proved  to  be  of  such  or  such  a  date;  they 
are,  therefore,  not  apostolic;  they  are  not  catholic;  thev 
are  not  even  ancient,  any  more  than  tiiey  are  scriptural: 
why,  then,  should  we  receive  and  submit  to  them?  "  I 
am  catholic,  not  you,"  may  every  protestant  say  to  every 
Romanist,  and  with  as  full  an  assurance  as  that  with 
which  the  genuine  Cambrian  may  say  to  the  Fitzwil- 
lianis,  the  Walters,  the  Villiers,  the  Godfreys,  "  I  am 
British,  not  you ;  I  had  turned  this  soil  ages  before  you 
Normans  had  set  a  foot  on  the  island."  We  are  not 
compelled,  by  any  logical  or  argumentative  obligation, 
9 


94  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

to  do  more  than  passively  to  reject,  and  resolutely  to  re- 
sist, Romanism,  that  is  to  say,  the  false,  debauched,  and 
tyrannous  superstition  of  the  nuddle  ages.  Protestant- 
ism, as  opposed  to  popery,  is  a  refusal  to  accept  innova- 
tions, bearing  an  ascertained  date. 

Or,  we  might  confine  our  protest  against  popery  within 
the  pithy  denunciations  of  the  Romanists'  own  saint, 
Vincent  of  Lerins — Annuntiare  ergo  aliquid  Christianis 
calholicis,  prceter  iii,  quod  acceperunt,  nunquani  licuit, 
Eusquam  licet,  nunquani  licebit;  et  analhemaiizare  eos, 
qui  annunciant  aliquid,  praclerquam  quod  semel  acceplum 
est,  nunquam  non  oportuil,  nusquam  non  oportet,  nun- 
quam  non  oportebit. 

But,  after  thus  remanding  popery  until  it  can  show 
some  cause  why  it  should,  for  a  moment,  be  listened  to, 
serious  difficulties  meet  us  in  our  upward  course  toward 
apostolic  Christianity;  nor  does  there  appear  to  be  any 
summary  process  by  which  these  difficulties  may  be 
surmounted.  By  the  determined  opponents  of  antiquity 
they  will  be  stated  in  terms  so  strong  as  must,  if  we 
listen  to  them,  lead  to  the  conclusion  they  desire,  name- 
ly, an  utter  rejection  of  whatever  comes  to  us  through 
the  contaminated  channels  of  ecclesiastical  tradition. 
Such  a  one  will  not  fail  briskly  to  put  the  question — 
"Why  draw  a  line,  where  there  is  no  important  dis- 
tinction, between  the  religion  of  the  tenth  century  and 
that  of  the  ninlli,  or  of  the  eighth,  or  of  the  seventh?" 
or  he  will  demand  that  we  should  show  that  C'hristianity 
was  in  a  much  purer  state  in  the  sixth  century  than  in 
the  seventh ;  or  that  it  had  not  become  vitally  corrupted 
even  in  the  fifth ;  or  that,  in  the  fourth,  it  retained  its  es- 
sential purity:  and  if  these  questions,  put  in  broad  terms, 
are  pushed  on  toward  the  earliest  years  to  which  our  ex- 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  95 

tant  materials  extend,  a  real  perplexity  will  attach  to  the 
answer  that  is  to  be  given  to  them:  in  truth,  we  shall 
never  be  able  to  deal  with  the  subject  in  the  abstract,  or 
in  mass ;  for  it  means  nothing,  or  nothing  as  to  any  prac- 
tical bearing,  either  to  say,  vaguely,  the  ancient  church 
was  in  error;  or,  as  vaguely,  to  deny  such  a  charge. 
We  must  descend  to  the  particular?,  and  must  sift  the 
evidence  with  a  minute  and  impartial  scrupulosity,  and 
the  result,  which  we  may  confidently  anticipate,  is  pre- 
cisely what  a  true  knowledge  of  human  nature,  sup- 
ported by  the  evidence  of  all  history,  would  lead  any 
calm  and  philosophic  mind  to  expect,  namely,  that, 
while  tlie  testimony  of  the  pristine  church,  concerning 
certain  facts  and  doctrines,  remains  unimpeached,  and  is 
ill  the  highest  degree  important,  and  while  its  faiih,  its 
constancy,  its  courage,  its  charity,  its  heavenly-minded- 
ness,  are  the  objects  of  just  admiration  and  imitation,  it 
had  admitted  certain  specific  errors,  and  had  yielded 
itself  to  some  natural  but  pernicious  impressions,  which 
make  a  blind  obsequiousness  toward  it,  on  our  part, 
equally  dangerous  and  absurd.  'J'here  is,  surely,  no 
mystery  in  all  this,  nor  any  miracle;  but  simply  what  is 
in  analogy  with  the  uniform  course  of  human  affairs, 
even  when  benefited  by  the  intervention  of  heavenly  in- 
fluences. Either  to  worship  the  pristine  church,  or  to 
condemn  it,  in  the  mass,  would  be  just  as  unwise  as  to 
treat  the  church  of  our  own  times,  or  of  any  other  times, 
in  a  manner  equally  undiscriminating.  But,  although 
there  be  neither  miracle  nor  mystery  in  the  facts  which 
an  impartial  research  brings  to  light,  concerning  the  re- 
ligious and  moral  condition  of  our  Christian  predeces- 
sors of  the  early  ages,  how  much  of  mystification  has 
darkened  the  minds  of  many,  in  their  notions  of  anti- 


96  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

quity,  and  how  much  of  what  must  have  been,  had  it 
had  place,  realiy  miraculous,  has  virtually  and  silently 
been  attributed  to  the  course  of  events,  in  the  church, 
from  the  death  of  the  apostles,  to  the  lime  when  it  ceases 
to  be  any  longer  practicable  even  to  imagine  any  such 
supernatural  control  of  ecclesiastical  affairs ! 

In  truth,  there  have  been,  and  are,  many  (and  as  it 
seems,  some  of  those  that  embrace  the  opinions  of  the 
Oxford  writers  are  of  the  number)  who,  while  they  might 
perhaps  deny  the  claim  of  the  martyr  church  to  the  pos- 
session of  miraculous  powers,  and  disallow  the  entire 
series  of  legends,  of  the  healing  the  sick,  and  raising  the 
dead,  yet  cling  to  the  fond  belief  that  the  church,  during 
the  early  centuries,  was  favoured  by  some  more  imme- 
diate divine  superintendence  than  is  the  church  of  our 
own  times;  or,  in  a  word,  that  a  species  of  theocracy, 
with  its  Urim  and  Thummim,  and  its  Shekinah,  had  ar» 
existence — vigorous  at  the  first,  and  gradually  fading  and 
melting  away,  into  the  merely  human  hierarchical  econo- 
my of  the  papacy.  A  vague  notion,  such  as  this,  may 
indeed  appear  to  be  sanctioned  by  certain  of  our  Lord's 
expressions;  but  those  who  entertain  it  should  not  forget 
tliat,  unless  those  expressions  were  intended  to  be  limit- 
ed to  the  apostles  and  first  teachers,  they  are  undoubt- 
edly the  property  of  the  church  in  all  ages,  and  without 
any  privilege  in  behalf  of  the  early  ages.  And  then  it 
will  follow  that  they  confer  no  claim  to  deference,  or 
general  authority,  for  the  ancient  church,  than  what  be- 
longs to  the  modern;  and  thence  also  it  follows  that,  if 
we  actually  find,  within  the  precincts  of  the  modern 
church,  strange  and  unsightly  combinations  of  high  and 
sacred  truths,  and  solid  virtues,  with  preposterous  errors, 
and  sad  delinquencies,  so  may  it  have  been,  and  so  was 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  97 

it,  in  an  equal,  and,  as  I  think,  in  even  a  greater  degree, 
within  the  enclosure  of  the  ancient  church. 

I  do  not  wisli,  in  the  present  argument,  to  employ  at 
all  the  phrases — philosophical  temper,  or  philosophical 
views,  lest  1  sliould  be  so  far  misunderstood,  or  misre- 
presented, as  to  be  supposed  to  favour  that  modern  guise 
of  infidelity,  called  rationalism.  Instead,  therefore,  in 
the  present  instance,  of  saying  we  should  learn  to  look 
at  the  history  of  the  primitive  church  with  a  philosopiiic 
eye,  I  will  urge  the  necessity  of  regarding  the  dim  ob- 
jects of  those  remote  times,  with  the  cool  and  piercing 
perceptions  of  an  undamaged  eye;  or,  in  other  words, 
under  the  guidance  of  plain  good  sense,  which,  amid  all 
kinds  of  illusive  appearances,  adheres  to  the  constant 
princi{)le,  that  human  nature,  however  much  it  may  have 
been  raised  above  its  ordinary  level  in  particular  instances, 
has  always  quickly  subsided,  and  been  substantially 
the  same,  in  every  age,  and  country.  'J'here  never  yet 
has  been,  on  earth,  a  community  of  ap.gels:  there  have 
been  saints;  that  is  to  say,  men,  in  the  main,  good  and 
wise;  but  there  has  been  no  corporation  or  entire  band  of 
saints,  any  more  than  any  faultless  individuals.  Or  if  it 
were  allowed,  whicli  I  think  it  must  be,  that  some  pe- 
riods have  very  far  excelled  others  in  piety  and  wisdom, 
I  should  still  demur  to  the  allegation  that  the  era  imme- 
diately following  the  death  of  the  apostles  can  claim  any 
such  pre-eminence.  Nay,  I  am  compelled  to  say,  that 
the  general  impression,  made  upon  my  mind  by  the  ac- 
tual evidence,  is  altogether  of  a  contrary  kind. 

On  this  subject,  however,  important  on  so  many  ac- 
counts, as  nothing  but  the  plain  and  simple  truth,  so  far 
as  attainable,  can  render  us  any  real  service,  or  be  ac- 
cepted by  any  sound  mind;  so,  any  tiling  else  than  the 
9* 


98  A  TEST  or  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

simple  truth,  will  not  fail  to  exaggerate,  or  to  pervert  our 
notions  upon  most  religious  subjects;  and  while  enter- 
taining any  such  illusions,  our  alternatives  will  be  a  ser- 
vile superstition,  or  sheer  infidelity. 

It  does  not  appear  that  we  have  as  yet,  on  any  side, 
obtained,  a  full,  clear,  and  matter-of-fact  idea  of  the  moral 
and  religious  condition  of  the  ancient  church;  and  I  am 
strongly  inclined  to  believe  that,  whoever  may  be  suc- 
cessful in  eliciting  such  an  idea,  and  in  giving  it  clearly 
to  the  church  at  large,  will,  in  so  doing  merely,  have 
gone  far  toward  effecting  the  silent  and  final  disappear- 
ance of  many  inveterate  errors.  Nay,  I  believe  tliat  it  will 
be  on  this  side  that  the  fibres  of  popery  itself,  will  be 
severed,  and  so  the  horrid  excrescence  disengaged  from 
the  religious  convictions  of  the  civilized  world. 

So  great  a  work  (yet  in  itself  sim.ple,  although  vast  in 
its  consequences)  will  not  be  efTecled  by  a  single  hand: 
indeed,  the  mere  thought  that  tins  were  possible,  would 
oppress  the  mind  that  should  address  itself  to  tlie  task. 
Meaning  no  more  then,  than  to  do  my  part,  however 
small,  I  sliall  attempt,  in  this  line,  what  the  occasion 
seems  to  demand.  And  in  doing  so,  instead  of  carrying 
forward  a  multifarious  inquiry,  concerning  twenty  topics 
of  early  opinion  and  practice,  I  shall  select,  in  this  first 
instance,  and  confine  myself  to  a  particular  topic,  and 
shall  clear  a  path,  as  I  go,  right  onward  toward  tlie  high- 
est antiquity.  But  then  this  selected  subject  of  inquiry 
must  be  one,  not  of  an  incidental,  but  of  an  intrinsically 
important  kind;  and  it  must  have  intimate  alliances  with 
the  entire  ecclesiastical  and  religious  system  of  antiquity, 
and  it  must,  from  its  peculiar  character^,  be  well  adapted 
to  the  general  purpose  of  bringing,  vividly  and  distinctly, 
into  view,  the  general,  and  the  special  merits  and  faults 
of  the  limes  in  question. 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  99 

Such  a  subject,  recommending  itself  to  our  choice, 
with  singular  completeness,  by  its  conformity  with  the 
above-named  conditions,  is  found  in  the  ancient,  and  the 
universal  opinion  entertained  in  the  Christian  Church, 
concerning  the  merits,  and  the  spiritual  eflicacy  of  celi- 
bacy, and  especially  of  uncontaminated  virginity;  taken 
in  connexion  with  the  practices  thence  immediately  re- 
sulting, and  the  sanctioned  institutions  to  which,  in  an 
early  age,  it  gave  rise.  With  what  belongs  to  Romanism, 
we  have  nothing  now  to  do: — nothing  with  the  compul- 
sory celibacy  of  the  clergy,  nothing  with  the  penal  rigours 
of  the  monastic  vow;  nothing  witli  tlie  corruptions,  or  the 
horrors,  engendered  by  this  system  when  its  proper  influ- 
ence had  come  to  take  effect  upon  the  European  com- 
monwealth. These  things  we  altogether  remit,  or  only 
glance  at  them  in  passing,  and  direct  our  vigilant  regards 
10  the  very  same  system  in  its  young  days,  and  before 
it  had  rendered  itself  execrable;  and  while  it  was  yet 
recommended  by  lofty  virtues,  and  by  som.e  substantial 
fruits,  as  well  as  excused  by  many  subsidiary  reasons. 
What  we  have  to  do  with,  touches — the  view  taken  by 
the  church,  of  Christianity,  as  a  moral  economy,  or  ethi- 
cal system,  from  the  very  earliest  limes;  it  touches  too 
the  principles  whence  sprang  the  most  ancient  notions 
concerning  the  mysterious  properties  of  the  sacraments; 
it  touches  intimately  the  position  and  the  power  of  the 
clergy;  it  touches  the  fundamental- doctrines  of  justifica- 
tion, and  sanctificaiion;  in  a  word,  it  leaves  nothing  in 
the  theological,  or  the  ecclesiastical  system,  of  ancient 
Christianity,  untouched.  I  offer  no  apology  then,  for 
the  choice  I  have  made  in  the  present  instance;  for  the 
momentous  controversy  now  before  the  church  justifies 
any  means  clearly  tending  to  bring  it  to  a  determinate 
issue,  which  a  religious  writer  can  wish  to  resort  to. 


100  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

Let  it  be  enough  that  I  pledo-e  myself  to  respect  ev^erjr 
pure  and  manly  feeling  which  should  belong  to  one  who  is 
himself  a  husband  and  a  father.  Very  much  that  pro- 
perly belongs  to  the  subject,  and  which,  if  adduced, 
would  powerfully  sustain  the  inference  I  have  in  view, 
can  neither  be  brought  forward,  nor  even  alluded  to.  I 
shall  cite  just  so  much  as  is  indispensable,  in  regard  to 
tlie  important  conclusion  toward  which  we  are  tending. 
And  at  liie  outset  I  must  profess  my  serious  and  delibe- 
rate belief  that  no  other  element  of  ancient  Christianity 
so  well,  as  the  one  which  I  have  chosen,  would  subserve 
the'purposes  of  the  general  argument,  or  tend  so  directly 
to  open  the  way  for  terminating  the  controversy  which 
now  divides  the  church. 

But  a  nice  question  presents  itself  on  the  threshold, 
which  perhaps  I  am  barely  entitled  to  put  to  the  writers 
of  the  Tracts  for  the  Times,  and  it  is  this — Why  tliey  have 
liitherto  avoided,  so  scrupulously,  a  subject  which,  as  they 
very  well  know,  stands  forward  as  the  most  prominent 
characteristic  of  ancient  Christianity?  These  learned 
persons  do  not  need  to  be  told  that,  whenever  we  turn 
our  eyes  toward  the  dim  distance  of  the  pristine  ages, 
there  is  one  glaring  spot,  the  glitter  of  which  dazzles  the 
sight;  and  that  this  luminous  point  of  the  piety  of  the 
early  church,  is — the  celestial,  or  angelic  excellence  of 
virginity.  They  well  know  that  this  opinion,  and  con- 
comitant practice,  was  no  accident  of  the  system;  but 
its  very  nucleus,  the  emanating  centre  of  feeling  and  be- 
haviour; and  that,  even  putting  out  of  view  the  extrava- 
gances of  individuals,  this  opinion  comes  down  to  us 
sanctioned  by  the  authority  of  all  the  most  illustrious 
doctors  and  confessors — the  entire  catena  patrum.  They 
well  know  that  this  at  least  is  no  popish  innovation;  and 
that  the  course  pursued,  from  age  to  age,  in  reference  to 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  101 

it,  by  the  Romish  authorities,  was  only  a  necessary  fol- 
lowing up  of  universally  admitted  principles.  They 
well  know  that,  had  it  been  possible,  at  any  moment, 
during  the  first  five  centuries,  to  have  withdrawn  this 
opinion,  and  these  practices,  ahogether  from  the  ecclesi- 
astical system,  the  entire  structure  of  polity  and  worship 
must  have  crumbled  to  the  dust,  leaving  nothing  but  the 
rudiments  of  Christianity — a  system  how  vastly  dif- 
ferent! 

One  cannot  then  but  be  perplexed  with  the  question, 
Why  this  foremost  characteristic  of  ancient  Christianity 
has  been  overlooked,  as  yet,  by  the  Oxford  divines.  Let 
them,  if  they  will,  leave  St.  Bernard  out  of  their  view, 
for  he  is  a  papist;  but  how  can  they  forget  Cyprian  and 
Tertullian  ?  let  them  be  silent  concerning  the  extrava- 
gances of  St.  Francis,  or  St.  Dominic,  but  why  do  so 
little  justice  to  Athanasiiis,  to  Chrysostom,  to  Jerome,  to 
Ambrose,  to  Augustine,  to  Theodoret,  to  Basil,  to  the 
four  Gregorys,  to  Leo,  to  Benedict,  to  Macarius,  and  to 
a  host  beside,  as  to  say  nothing  concerning  that  one 
highly  illuminated  theme,  upon  which  these  great  and 
good  men  made  it  their  duty  and  their  glory  to  expend 
the  prime  force  of  their  eloquence,  and  upon  which  they 
strewed,  on  all  occasions,  the  gayest  and  most  fragrant 
flowers  of  their  flowery  rhetoric?  whence  has  arisen  this 
oversight? 

A  singular  oversight  it  must  surely  be  regarded ;  for, 
while  these  erudite  divines,  conversant  as  they  are  with 
Christian  antiquity,  (more  so,  perhaps,  than  with  the 
real  conditions  of  the  age  they  live  in,)  are,  in  the  tones 
of  a  solemn  remonstrance,  calling  upon  the  church  to 
retrace  its  heedless  steps,  and  to  realize,  so  far  as  possi- 
ble, an  imitation  of  the  religious  notions  and  practices 


102  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

of  the  second  and  third  centuries,  and  while  they  would 
fain  render  the  apostolic  English  church  a  very  copy 
(its  sufferings  excepted)  of  the  church  as  we  find  it  un- 
der Dionysius  and  Cyprian,  yet  exclude  from  their  copy 
the  most  characteristic  and  prominent  feature  of  their 
venerable  pattern!  If  they  reply  that,  on  this  one  and 
only  point,  the  doctrine  and  practices  of  the  ancient 
chnrch  were  mistaken,  we  grant  it  indeed  ;  but  must 
then  go  on  to  say,  that  the  error — theoretic  and  practi- 
cal— was  of  such  a  depth  and  magnitude  as  to  bring  the 
whole  system,  of  wliich  it  formed  so  principal  a  part, 
under  grave  suspicion,  and  to  render  the  utmost  circum- 
spection indispensable,  when  we  are  called  upon  to  be- 
lieve, or  to  do,  this  or  that,  because  it  was  believed  or 
done  by  the  ancient  church. 

Unable  to  conceive  of  it  as  possible,  that  the  Oxford 
writers  can  simply  h^ive  forgotten  this  foremost  article 
of  the  faith  and  morals  of  the  early  church,  1  cannot  but 
plainly  express  niy  conviction  that  they  are  not  so  devoid 
of  worldly  discretion,  or  so  regardless  of  the  temper  of 
the  limes  they  live  in,  as  not  to  have  felt  that,  to  protrude 
the  ancient  doctrine  concerning  the  merits  of  virginity, 
at  so  early  a  stage  of  their  proceedings,  however  "  hap- 
pily omened,"  would  have  been  a  measure  that  must 
have  proved  instantly  fatal  to  the  cause  they  are  pro- 
moting. Whatever  whims  or  illusions  the  well-informed 
classes  in  this  country  may,  for  a  time,  give  themselves 
up  to,  there  is  among  us  always  a  vigorous  good  sense, 
and  a  strong  right  feeling,  in  matter  of  morality — a  sense 
of  the  fair  and  honest,  such  as  would  not  have  failed  to 
resent  with  vehemence  any  endeavour,  even  the  most 
cautious,  to  subvert  the  first  principles  of  the  social  eco- 
nomy, and  to  poison  the  springs  of  natural  sentiment. 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  103 

Every  just  and  manly  emotion,  and  every  pure  feminine 
emotion,  would  have  been  kindled,  and  would  have 
covered  with  shame  any  attempt  to  bring  back  upon  us 
the  demure  abominations,  and  the  horrors  of  religious 
celibacy.  The  Oxford  'I'ract  writers  have  much  yet  to 
do — a  Herculean  task  to  perform,  (not  indeed  to  cleanse 
t!ie  stables  of  monkish  pietism,  but  to  deluge  the  land 
with  their  fillh,)  before  they  may  venture  so  much  as  to 
whisper  their  desire  to  revive  this  great  article  of  ancient 
Christianity,  or  to  restore  to  its  honours  the — iikistrior 
portio  gregis  Christi.  This  flos  atque  decus  ecclesiastic! 
germinis,  is,  let  them  believe  it,  withered  to  the  root, 
and  wo  and  siiame  to  those  who  may  strive  to  raise  a 
new  plant  from  its  pernicious  seeds! 

And  yet  it  is  hard  to  say,  if  certain  principles  be 
granted,  why  we  should  not  emulate  that  which  the  fa- 
thers, one  and  all,  considered  as  the  choicest  part  of 
Christianity — the  fair,  the  ripened,  and  the  fragrant  fruit 
of  its  highest  influences:  if  we  are  to  imitate  the  subor- 
dinate characteristics  of  the  same  system,  why  not  its 
principal  ?  Let  us,  as  good  protestants,  reject  v/ith  hor- 
ror the  institutions  of  St.  Dominic;  but  why  abstain 
from  those  of  St.  Benedict?  We  will  not  choose  to 
copy  St.  Cecelia,  but  why  not  follow  St.  Anthony  ? 
We  loathe,  perhaps,  the  principles  of  St.  Ignatius  Loy- 
ola, but  dare  we  stop  the  ear  at  the  soft  call  of  St. 
Ephrem,  and  St.  Basil,  when  they  invite  us  to  rend 
every  s{)cial  tie  by  which  we  may  be  connected  with 
the  world,  and  to  retire  to  a  vacant  cell  next  to  their 
own  1 

Our  ears  have  been  so  much  and  so  long  used  to  the 
sound  (repealed  by  protestant  writers,  one  after  the  other, 
and  without  any  distinct  rei'erence  to  facts,  and  probably 


104  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

without  any  direct  knowledge  of  them,)  of  the  prO' 
gressive  corruption  of  Christianity,  and  of  the  slow  and 
steady  advances  of  superstition  and  spiritual  tyranny, 
that  we  are  little  prepared  to  admit  a  contrary  statement, 
better  sustained  by  evidence,  as  well  as  more  practically 
significant  in  itself — namely,  that,  although  councils,  or 
the  papal  authority,  from  age  to  age,  followed  up,  im- 
bodied  and  legalized,  certain  opinions,  usages,  and  prac- 
tices, which  were   already   prevalent,  in  an  undefined 
form,  it  very  rarely  pushed  on  far  in  advance  of  the 
feeling  and  habit  of  the  times;  but  that,  on  the  contrary, 
it  rather  followed  in  the  wake  of  ancient  superstition  and 
contemporary  corruption,  expressing,  in  bulls,  decretals, 
and  canons,  (which   were   not  seldom  of  a  corrective 
kind,)  the  will  or  temper  of  the  ecclesiastical  body.    Or 
to  slate  the  same  general  fact,  as  it  is  seen  from  another 
point  of  view,  it  will  be  found  true  that,  if  the  opinion 
and  sentiment  of  the  church,  at  different  eras,  be  regarded 
apart  from  the  autiiorized  expressions  of  the  same,  there 
will  appear  to  have  been  far  less  oi progression  than  we 
have  been  taught  to  suppose;  and  that,  on  the  contrary, 
the  notions  and  usages  of  a  later,  differ  extremely  little, 
or  not  at  all,  from  those  of  an  earlier  age;  or  that,  so  far 
as  they  do  differ,  the  advantage,  in  respect  of  morality 
and  piety,  is  quite  as  often  on  the  side  of  the  later,  as  of 
the  earlier  ages.    Particular  points  had  in  view,  it  might 
be  affirmed,  that  popery  was  a  practicable  form,  and  a 
corrected  expression,  of  ancient  Christianity. 

This  is  especially  the  case  in  reference  to  the  subject 
which  we  have  now  before  us ;  nor  do  I  at  all  hesitate 
to  affirm,  that  pages,  and  pages  again,  may  be  adduced 
from  writers  of  the  second  and  third  century,  which, 
suppressing  names  and  incidental  allusions,  an  intelligent 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  105 

reader  might  easily  suppose  to  have  been  taken  from 
those  of  the  twelfth  or  thirteenth  century.  What,  then, 
I  am  peculiarly  desirous  to  place  in  a  conspicuous  posi- 
tion, is,  the  fact  that,  instead  of  a  regular  and  slow  de- 
velopment of  error,  there  was  a  very  early  expansion  of 
false  and  pernicious  notions,  in  their  mature  proportions, 
and  these  attended  by  some  of  their  worst  fruits.  This, 
then,  is  the  very  point  and  hinge  of  our  argument;  and, 
in  making  good  the  weighty  allegation,  I  shall  use,  not 
only  all  requisite  diligence  of  research ;  but,  as  I  trust, 
a  strict  and  conscientious  impartiality.  It  may  be,  in- 
deed, that  later  writers  express  themselves  in  more  ful- 
some terms,  or  in  worse  taste  than  the  earlier;  and  it 
may  be  that  the  popes  and  saints  of  the  middle  ages  ex- 
hibit less  acquaintance  with  the  classic  models  of  style 
than  was  the  boast  of  the  well-taught  doctors  of  the  third 
and  fourth  centuries  ;  but,  in  the  substance  of  tlieir  reli- 
gious system,  and  in  extent  of  moral  obliquity,  they  do 
not,  I  venture  to  say,  a  whit  surpass  them.  I'he  infe- 
rence afTecling  other  and  more  disputed  points  of  Chris- 
tian morality,  ecclesiastical  usage,  and  theological  opi- 
nions, will  force  itself  upon  every  thoughtful  reader. 

And  how  well  might  our  vigilance  be  quickened  when 
higlily  respectable  Romanist  writers  are  heard  affirming 
(and  not  without  an  appeal  to  good  evidence,)  as  much, 
in  behalf  of  the  characteristic  corruptions  of  their  own 
church,  as  certain  protestants  among  us  are  now  affirm- 
ing in  behalf  of  other  ancient  practices  and  opinions, 
authenticated  in  precisely  the  same  mode,  and  to  the 
same  extent ! 

"  The  celibacy  of  the  clergy,"  says  Alban  Butler,  "  is 
merely  an  ecclesiastical  law,  though  perfectly  conforma- 
ble to  the  spirit  of  the  gospel,  and  doubtless  derived  from 
10 


106  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

the  apostles."  We  have  then  to  see  whether  the  proof 
of  the  antiquity  and  universality  of  the  opinions  of 
which  this  law  was  merely  a  formal  expression,  be  not 
as  good  as  can  be  adduced  in  support  of  practices  and 
principles  now  urged  upon  us,  because  ancient  and  "  apos- 
tolic." 

In  making  good  my  general  allegation,  I  shall  adduce 
evidence  in  proof  or  illustration  of  the  following  five 
propositions,  whicli,  if  established,  may  be  held  to  su- 
persede much  of  the  argument,  otherwise  requisite,  in 
reference  to  points  now  actually  under  discussion  ;  at 
tlie  same  time,  the  passages  to  be  cited  will  afford  the 
means  of  exhibiting,  in  its  true  colours,  the  general  con- 
dition of  the  ancient  church,  moral  and  religious,  and 
will,  therefore,  serve  to  dissipate  the  illusions  that  are 
apt  to  surround  the  objects  of  remote  antiquity.  ]My  pro- 
positions are — 

I.  That  the  lapse  of  eight  hundred  or  a  thousand  years 
exhibits  very  little,  if  any,  progression,  in  the  quality  or 
extravagance  of  those  notions  which  gave  support  to  the 
practices  of  religious  celibacy;  and  that  the  attendant 
abuses  of  this  system  were  nearly,  or  quite,  as  flagrant 
at  the  earlier,  as  at  the  later  date. 

II.  Ttiat,  at  the  very  earliest  time  when  we  find  these 
notions  and  practices  to  have  been  generally  prevalent, 
and  accredited,  they  were  no  novelties;  but  had  come 
down  from  a  still  earlier  era. 

III.  That,  as  these  notions  and  practices  are  of  imme- 
morial antiquity,  so  did  they  afl'ect  the  church  universal 
— eastern,  western,  and  African;  and  that  thus  they  come 
fully  within  the  terms  of  the  rule — quod  semper,  quod 
ubique,  quod  ab  omnibus. 

IV.  That  these  opinions  and  practices,  in  their  most 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  107 

extreme  form,  received  an  ample  and  explicit  sanction, 
and  a  solemn  authentication  from  all  the  great  writers 
and  doctors  of  the  church,  during  the  most  prosperous 
and  enlightened  age  of  any  preceding  the  reformation; 
and  that,  on  this  head,  popery  has  no  peculiar  culpabi- 
lity. 

V.  That  the  notions  and  practices  connected  with  the 
doctrine  of  the  superlative  merit  of  religious  celibacy, 
were,  at  once,  the  causes  and  the  effects  of  errors  in  the- 
ology, of  perverted  moral  sentiments,  of  superstitious 
usages,  of  hierarchical  usurpations;  and  that  they  fur- 
nish us  with  a  criterion  for  estimating  the  general  value 
OF  ANCIENT  CHRISTIANITY;  and,  in  a  word,  afford  reason 
enough  for  regading,  if  not  with  jealousy,  at  least  with 
extreme  caution,  any  attempt  to  induce  the  modern 
church  to  imitate  the  ancient  church. 


THE  FIRST  PROPOSITION, 

My  first  thesis,  then,  is  to  this  effect — 

That  no  essential  change,  or  progressive  deterioration, 
took  place  during  the  course  of  many  centuries,  dating- 
from  what  is  called  the  pristine  age  of  the  church,  in  re- 
gard to  the  notions  entertained  concerning  the  merit  and 
angelic  virtues  of  celibacy;  and  that  the  extreme  evils 
usually  considered  as  inseparable  from  these  notions,  at- 
tached to  them  from  the  earliest  times;  or  in  other  words, 
that  the  vices  and  absurdities  of  Romanism,  on   this 


108  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

ground,  are  only  the  vices  and  absurdities  of  ancient 
Christianity. 

For  the  purpose  of  establishing  the  position  here  as- 
sumed, and  which,  if  actually  made  good,  will  go  far 
toward  clearing  a  path  over  the  ground  of  the  present 
controversy,  I  shall  study  brevity  and  condensation,  as 
far  as  may  consist  with  a  satisfactory  and  (if  it  were  pos- 
sible) a  final  treatment  of  this  initial  portion  of  the  ar- 
gument. It  will  manifestly  be  requisite  to  adduce  pas- 
sages, first  from  some  two  or  three  of  the  autlienticated 
writers  of  the  later  and  mature  times  of  Romanism,  by 
the  side  of  which  must  be  placed  analogous,  or  parallel 
quotations  from  the  leading  Ante-Nicene  fathers;  and  on 
a  comparison  of  the  two,  it  will  be  for  calm  and  candid 
minds  to  determine  whether  my  first  thesis  affirms  more 
than  ought  to  have  been  asserted. 

It  was  not,  as  I  have  already  said,  the  authorities  of 
the  Romish  church — popes,  cardinals,  councils,  that 
pushed  forward  the  system  of  spiritual  prostitution,  su- 
perstition and  tyranny;  but  much  rather  a  deeply-work- 
ing spirit  acting  from  within  the  church;  and  this  spirit 
is  one  and  the  same,  whether  uttering  itself  from  the  fer- 
vid lips  of  St.  Dominic  de  Guzman,  or  St.  Bernard,  or 
the  not  less  fervid  lips  of  a  father  of  the  second  and 
third  century.  This  spirit  proved  itself  in  fact  to  be  far 
more  potent  than  the  authority  which  the  popes  them- 
selves exerted,  even  about  the  walls  of  the  Vatican.  A 
curious  instance  presents  itself,  with  which  I  may  com- 
mence my  series  of  testimonies.  So  late  as  the  twelfth 
century  many  of  the  monastic  institutions  continued  to  be 
of  an  open  kind;  that  is  to  say,  some  of  the  religious  esta- 
blishments were  merely  lodging-houses,  for  persons  pro- 
fessing more  assiduity  in  the  offices  of  piety  than  their 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  109 

neighbours;  and  where  the  freest  access  was  allowed  to 
the  parents  and  friends  of  the  mis-called,  recluses.  In 
other  cases,  even  residence  in  the  nunnery  was  dispensed 
with,  so  that  those  who  had  enrolled  themselves  as  mem- 
bers of  a  certain  society,  and  as  intending  to  adhere  to 
the  rules  of  the  order,  continued  to  live  with  their  friends; 
and  to  mix  pretty  freely  in  general  society.  This  laxity 
of  practice,  open  as  it  must  have  been  to  abuses,  and 
being  as  it  was  a  departure  from  the  practices  of  the  early 
ages,  and  tending  to  weaken  much  the  hold  which  the 
church  might  have  had  over  the  entire  system,  had  long 
engaged  the  zealous  endeavours  of  Innocent  III.  to  re- 
dress it;  but  he,  despot  as  he  was,  had  laboured  with 
little  success,  even  in  Rome  itself,  to  effect  an  absolute  in- 
carceration of  all  who  liad  bound  themselves  by  the  mo- 
nastic rules,  and  to  seclude  them  effectively,  not  from 
the  world  merely,  but  from  their  nearest  relatives.  The 
letters  of  this  pope  betray,  at  once,  his  extreme  anxiety 
to  bring  about  this  necessary  reform,  and  the  vexa- 
tion with  which  he  witnessed  the  small  success  of  his 
endeavours.  But  wherein  a  pope,  and  such  a  pope  as  In- 
nocent III.  fails,  and  confesses  himself  over-matched,  a 
Dominic  easily  triumphs,  after  only  a  second  effort,  and 
without  the  necessity  of  exhibiting  more  than  a  single 
and  customary  miracle.  To  the  vagrant  and  giddy  nuns 
of  Rome,  this  saint  had  offered  his  own  newly  elected 
monastery,  in  that  city;  with  the  hope  of  tempting  them 
to  abandon  the  laxity  of  their  practice;  and  at  length  he 
obtained  their  reluctant  consent  to  make  this  sumptuous 
palace  of  poverty  their  abode,  and  their  prison.  Their 
alarmed  relatives,  however,  succeeded  in  bringing  them 
to  renounce  their  inconsiderate  promise;  nor  was  it  until 
after  a  new  and  more  strenuous  exertion  of  his  spiritual 
10* 


110  A  TEST  or  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

influence,  that  he  finally  triumphed  over  the  impulses, 
as  well  of  their  better,  as  of  their  worse  natures.  On 
Ash-Wednesday,  1218,  tlie  abbess,  and  some  of  her  nuns 
— the  elder  sisters  probably  (of  the  monastery  of  St. 
Mary  beyond  the  Tiber)  went  to  take  possession  of  their 
new  abode;  where  they  found  already,  the  saint,  in  con- 
ference with  three  cardinals — commissioners,  in  this  in- 
stance, with  himself.  But  hardly  had  the  first  compli- 
ments passed,  between  these  reverend  persons,  wlien  it 
was  suddenly  announced  by  a  messenger,  tearing  his  hair 
to  admiration,  that  a  young  nobleman,  named  Napoleon,* 
and  who  was  the  nephew  of  one  of  the  said  carchnals, 
had  just  been  tiirown  from  his  horse,  and — killed  on  the 
spot!  Forthwith  the  conference  is  broken  off,  and  the 
lifeless  and  lacerated  body  is,  by  command  of  the  "  than- 
maturgus  of  the  age,"  brought  within  doors:  mass  is  said 
— the  saint,  in  celebrating  the  divine  mysteries,  shed  a 
flood  of  tears,  and  while  elevating  the  body  of  Christ  in 
his  pure  hands,  he  was  himself,  in  an  ecstasy,  lifted  up 
a  whole  cubit  from  the  ground,  in  the  sight,  and  to  tlie 
amazement,  of  all  who  were  present.  After  awhile, 
and  as  might  have  been  expected,  wliile  St.  Dominic 
himself  continued  suspended  in  the  air,  he  cried,  with  a 
loud  voice,  "  Napoleon,  1  say  to  thee,  in  the  name  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  arise."  That  instant,  in  the 
sight  of  the  whole  multitude,  the  young  man  arose, 
sound  and  whole!  What  then  could  the  refractory  or 
reluctant  nuns  of  St.  Mary  do,  but,  at  the  bidding  of  this 


*  This  morning-star  of  the  race  of  Napoleon,  could,  no  doubt, 
Bham  dead  as  handsomely,  and  naturally,  as  his  illustrious  name* 
sake,  of  our  times,  acted  the  part  of  a  good  musulman,  or  a  good 
catholic,  when  needful. 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  Ill 

raiser  of  the  dead,  rush  into  the  net  prepared  for  them; 
and  pine  away  the  residue  of  their  years,  within  the 
gloomy  walls  of  the  monastery  of  St.  Sixtiis? 

But  now,  you  say,  all  this  is  mere  popery;  and  what 
have  we  to  do  with  its  superstitions,  or  with  the  impi- 
ous frauds  that  were  perpetrated  to  give  them  credit? 
What  we  have  to  do  with  these  things  is  this — to  retrace 
the  course  of  time,  a  thousand  years,  or  nearly  as  much, 
and  there  and  then  to  discover,  in  the  bosom  of  the  pris- 
tine and  martyr  cliurch,  not  perhaps  the  very  same  forms, 
usages,  frauds,  follies;  but  those  substantial  elements  of 
religious  opinion,  and  of  moral  sentiment,  wliich  gave 
support  to  all  these  abominations,  and  apart  from  which 
they  would  never  have  had  existence.  This  then  is  the 
gist  of  our  present  argument — that  there  is  absolutely 
nothing  in  the  ripe  popery  of  the  times  of  St.  Dominic 
(certain  elaborate  modes  of  proceeding  excepted)  which 
is  not  to  be  found  in  the  Christianity  of  the  times  of 
Cyprian  or  of  Tertullian. 

The  last  named  father  I  reserve  to  be  placed  side  by 
side  with  a  kindred  spirit  of  the  middle  ages;  and  at 
present  turn  to  the  mild,  pious,  and  judicious,  as  well  as 
eloquent,  martyr,  archbishop  of  Carthage.  Let  us  then, 
at  a  leap  of  one  tliousand  years,  pass  the  abyss  of  popery, 
and  imagine  ourselves  fairly  laniled  upon  the  terra  firma 
of  pristine  purity — the  realm  of  the  still  bleeding  and  vo- 
luntary church,  whence  may  be  descried,  like  a  waning 
twilight,  the  brightness  of  the  apostolic  age.  The  pas- 
sages I  am  to  offer  are  not  merely  highly  significant, 
in  themselves,  and  indispensable  as  links  in  our  argu- 
ment, but  they  tend  directly  to  lay  open  what  was  the 
real  condition,  spiritual  and  ecclesiastical,  of  the  early 
church.     In  abridging,  so  far  as  may  be  requisite,  my 


112  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDttlON 

quotations,  and  in  taking  sing-le  expressions  from  para- 
graphs, 1  stand  pledged  (and  am  open  to  an  easy  rebuke 
if  detected  in  any  wilful  perversions)  to  omit  nothing 
M'hich,  if  adduced,  might  serve  to  conlravene  the  infer- 
ence I  have  in  view;  and  if,  on  the  other  hand,  I  am 
compelled  to  retrench  not  a  little  which  would  most 
pointedly  support  that  inference,  1  do  so  in  deference  to 
the  propriety  which  our  modern  refinement  prescribes. 
Whoever  will  look  into  the  authors  cited  will,  I  am  sure, 
admit  that,  to  have  availed  myself  of  the  materials  before 
me  in  a  less  scrupulous  manner,  would  not  a  little  have 
strengthened  the  position  1  maintain. 

You  will  not  tell  me  that  you  are  already  familiar  with 
the  passages  which  you  foresee  I  shall  fix  upon  ;  and 
that  the  general  faci  which  they  are  adduced  to  illustrate, 
is  sufficiently  understood,  and  is  generally  admitted. 
This  may  perhaps  be  true,  though  one  would  not  think 
it  when  one  listens  to  the  customary  style,  either  of  the 
favourers  of  antiquity,  or  of  its  impugners,  who,  on  the 
one  part,  seem  to  be  discreetly  concealing  the  real  and 
simple  facts,  which,  on  the  oilier  side,  ap[)ear  to  be  but 
slenderly  or  confusedly  apprehended.  'J'he  time,  how- 
ever, is  come  when  it  is  indispensable  that  we  should 
make  ourselves  thoroughly  and  authentically  familiar 
with  whatever  we  have  the  means  of  knowing,  concern- 
ing ancient  Christianity. 

At  a  time  not  more  remote  from  the  apostolic  age, 
than  we,  of  this  generation,  are  from  the  limes  of  Bar- 
row, Tillotson,  Taylor,  Baxter,  we  find  all  the  elements 
of  the  abuses  of  the  twelfth  century,  and,  not  the  ele- 
ments only,  but  most  of  those  abuses  in  a  ripened,  nay, 
in  a  putrescent  condition. 

Cyprian,  and  his  presbyters,  writes,  in  reply  to  Pom- 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  113 

ponius,  a  suffragan  bishop,  \vho  had  reported  certain 
scandals,  in  treating  which  he  needed  direction  and  au- 
thoritative support.  From  this  letter  it  appears  that  the 
rash  and  unwarrantable  vow  of  perpetual  celibacy,  or 
virginity,  taken,  or  forced  upon  multitudes  of  young 
women,  in  some  moment  of  artificial  religious  excitement, 
had  been  too  late  repented  of  by  many  of  its  victims, 
who,  finding  themselves  cut  off  from  the  virtuous  en- 
dearments of  domestic  life,  had  rushed  into  irregularities-, 
loading  their  conscience  at  once  with  a  real,  and  a  su- 
pererogatory guilt,  and  had,  under  the  colour  of  spiritual 
intercourse  wiih  the  clergy  to  whose  care  they  had  been 
consigned,  and  who  themselves  were  galled  by  the  same 
impious  extravagance,  admitted  the  grossest  familiarities, 
and  thus  had  diffused  an  extreme  corruption  of  manners 
among  the  very  men  to  whom  were  intrusted  the  moral 
and  religious  welfare  of  the  people.  So  early  liad  this 
false  fervour  produced  its  poisonous  fruit,  and  had  ulce- 
rated, in  its  vitals,  the  body  of  the  church!  •'  Concern- 
ing those,"  says  Cyprian,  "  who,  after  having  solemnly 
devoted  themselves  to  continence,  have  been  found  co- 
habiting with  men — detectae  in  eodem  lecto  pariter  man- 
sisse  cum  masculis — yet  professing  tliemselves  inviolate 
' — cum  viris  dormisse  confessae  sint  ....  you  have  de- 
sired my  advice.  You  well  know  that  we  do  not  recede 
from  the  evangelic  and  apostolic  traditions  ....  and 
that,  in  regard  to  the  welfare  of  all,  church  discipline  is 
to  be  maintained  ....  wherefore  it  is  by  no  means  to 
be  allowed  that  young  women  should  (non  dico  simul 
dormire)  live  with  men.  If  indeed  they  have  cordially 
dedicated  themselves  to  Christ,  let  them  modestly  and 
chastely,  and  without  subterfuge,  hold  to  their  purpose, 
and,  thus  constant  and  firm,  look  for  the  reward  of  vir- 


114        A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

ginity — prsemium  virginitatis. — Bnt  if  in  fact  they  will 
not  (vel  non  possunt)  so  persevere,  let  lliem  marry. 

Take  your  Cyprian  from  the  shelf,  and  tell  me  whether 
the  j)assages,  and  the  expressions!  have  omitted,  do  not 
make  it  certain,  that  this  pretended  "Apostolic  institu- 
tion," namely,  of  religious  celibacy,  or,  as  it  was  called, 
dedication  or  espousals  to  Christ,  had  not  already,  and 
even  amidst  the  fires  of  persecution,  become  the  imme- 
diate occasion,  in  a  very  extensive  degree,  to  licentious 
practices,  which  must  have  been  fatal  to  all  piety,  as  well 
as  frightful  in  themselves.  In  trutli,  if  we  are  thinking 
of  the  preservation  of  morality  at  large,  or  of  the  purity 
of  the  church  in  particular,  I  could  not,  for  my  own  part, 
hesitate  to  prefer  the  tremendous  irreversible  vows,  and 
the  dungeon  monasteries  of  later  times,  to  the  loose  fa- 
natical profligacy  of  the  times  of  Cyprian.  If  we  are  to 
hear  much  more  of  tlie  purity  of  the  early  church,  there 
will  be  no  choice  left  but  to  quote  Cyprian  and  Tertul- 
lian,  without  retrenchment. 

**  And  if  all,"  continues  this  truly  faithful  pastor,  "  are 
bound  to  observe  a  necessary  discipline,  how  much  more 
are  those  bound  to  do  so  who  should  aflford  an  example 
to  others  !  How  shall  they,  the  clergy,  praepositos  et 
diaconos,  be  guides  in  the  path  of  piety  and  virtue,  if, 
in  fact,  from  them  proceeds  a  contaminating  warranty  of 
vice  !  .  .  .  .  Thou  hast  therefore  well  done  in  withdraw- 
ing from  the  deacon  and  others,  qui  cum  virginibus  dor- 
mire  consueverunt." 

Nothing  could  place  in  a  stronger  light  the  absurdity, 
and  ihe  inevitable  abuses,  inseparable  from  ihis  ancient 
practical  error,  than  to  menlion  llie  inefl'ably  degrading, 
as  well  as  precarious  condition  upon  which,  by  Cy- 
prian's directions,  was  to  depend  the  restoration  of  the 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  115 

guilty,  or  of  the  suspected,  to  the  communion  of  the 
church— a  condition  of  which  he  had  himself  intimated 
his  distrust  (cum  ....  saepe  fallatur)  hut  this  we  forego, 
only  remarking  the  significant  fact,  as  attaching  to  so 
early  a  time,  that  already  a  rational  solicitude  concern- 
ing spiritual  and  moral  character,  had  been  displaced  by 
a  stupid  regard  to  what  was  merely  external  and  formal. 
Did  the  religious  character  of  these  loose  ladies  gain 
any  real  warranty  from  the  report  of  the  obsletrix  ?  Or 
were  their  clerical  paramours  rendered  more  fit  teachers 
of  Christianity  by  the  issue  of  any  such  ordeals?  Al- 
ready had  the  first  principles  of  the  social  system,  as 
divinely  constituted,  been  so  perverted,  and  the  senti- 
ments of  real  virtue  so  broken  in  upon,  by  this  perni- 
cious system  of  factitious  super-human  piety,  iliat  the 
sexes  could  no  longer  be  suffered,  with  any  safety,  even 
to  live  together  under  the  same  roof!  and  thus,  as  it  re- 
garded the  ministers  of  religion,  at  least,  the  whole  of 
that  happy  and  genial  influence  which  is  found  to  result 
from  Christianized  domestic  relations,  was  turned  aside; 
and  in  its  place  came  habits  and  modes  of  feeling,  wliich 
may  not  be  described  or  contemjdaled.  But  all  this  evil 
sprang  from  the  desire  to  make  up  a  loftier  sort  of  reli- 
gion than  that  which  God  had  given  to  the  world  ! 

The  palliations  that  may  be  found  for  these  grievous 
errors,  and  the  almost  inevitable  infatuation  which  held 
the  minds  of  those  who  had  been  trained  to  support  and 
reverence  them,  and  the  relation  they  bore  to  the  ex- 
treme corruptions  of  the  times,  and  also  to  the  frequent 
and  severe  sufferings  to  which  the  church,  during  three 
centuries,  was  exposed — these  themes  of  extenuation  are 
not  now  our  subject; — an  occasion  may  perhaps  present 
itself,  for  offering  a  general  apology  in  behalf  of  those 


116  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

whom  now  we  are  arraigning.  What  we  have  at  pre- 
sent to  do  with,  is  the  fact  of  an  early  and  extensive  re- 
ligious illusion;  and  the  inferences  this  fact  involves. 
Let  this,  however,  be  said,  that  the  church,  looking 
abroad  upon  the  universal  and  frightful  dissoluteness  of 
the  heathen  world,  conceived  the  belief  that  the  enor- 
mous evil  could  never  be  amended  by  applying  to  it  the 
simple,  firm,  and  natural  morality  of  the  gospel,  as  pro- 
mulgated by  Christ,  and  his  apostles;  but  they  thought 
it  could  be  counteracted,  if  at  all,  by  nothing  but  a  spe- 
cies of  virtue  that  was  exaggerated  in  a  proportionate 
degree.  This  artificial  purity,  was  then  a  violent  re- 
action, ending,  as  might  have  been  foreseen,  and  as 
every  convulsive  moral  struggle  must,  in  a  correspon- 
dent corruption,  as  well  of  manners,  as  of  principles. 
It  is  curious,  in  this  point  of  view,  to  compare  our  Cy- 
prian's rlielorical  description  of  the  dissoluteness  of  his 
times  (ad  Donatum)  with  the  facts  admitted,  or  indicated, 
by  himself,  in  his  endeavours  to  repress  the  spreading 
plague  within  the  church;  not  that  tlie  practices  liiem- 
selves  were  equally  flagitious;  but  yet  were  they  ren- 
dered tlie  more  culpable  by  those  advantages  of  light 
in  which  the  heathen  had  no  part. 

How  much  turns  often  (and  it  is  an  observation  per- 
petually olfering  itself  in  the  perusal  of  cjiurch  history) 
upon  an  insensible  substitution  of  a  technical,  for  the 
general  and  genuine  sense  of  an  ethical  term!  It  was 
just  by  the  aid  of  some  of  these  hardly  perceptible  sub- 
stitutions that  the  eminent  men  we  have  now  to  do  with 
(and  Cyprian  not  less  than  any)  found  the  ready  means 
of  gaining  an  apparent  scriptural  warranty  for  practices 
flagrantly  contravening  the  spirit  and  meaning  of  scrip- 
tural morality.     Thus  it  is  that  he  reiterates  his  quota- 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  117 

tioRS  from  the  Psalms,  and  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  in 
support  of  that  ecclesiastical  discipline  which  the  vow  of 
celibacy  involved,  by  adducing  texts  in  which  the  in- 
struction, correction,  or  reproof  recommended  by  David 
or  Solomon  is  rendered  disciplina,  in  the  Latin  version 
of  the  Old  Testament,  which  he  used  :  as  thus — "  Those 
who  refuse  instruction  shall  perish;"  or,  as  the  Latin 
has  it — "  those  shall  perish,"  and  under  the  anger  of 
the  Lord,  who  infringe  the  rules  of  this  artificial  disci- 
pline^ enjoined  for  enforcing  the  system  of  factitious  pu- 
rity. Tertullian,  long  before,  had  appropriated  this  term 
in  the  same  manner.  The  Greek  Church  writers  em- 
ploy the  word  philosophy  in  a  sense  nearly  equivalent. 

But  we  have  yet  to  see  what  those  generally  received 
and  accredited  notions  were,  to  which  the  shepherds  of 
the  church  ordinarily  appealed,  when  handling  the  sub- 
ject of  religious  celibacy,  and  which  so  sober-minded  a 
prelate  as  Cyprian  alleges  as  the  foundation  of  his  com- 
mands and  exhortations,  when  labouring  to  repress  the 
abuses  which,  at  this  early  period,  had  come  in,  like  an 
inundation  upon  the  church.  An  exposition  of  these  no- 
tions and  opinions  we  find  placed  in  the  front  of  the 
treatise,  or  dehorlation,  ''  concerning  the  attire  of  vir- 
gins," (nuns)  that  is  to  say,  of  those  who  had  dedicated 
their  bodies,  as  well  as  their  souls,  to  the  Lord;  and 
who,  under  the  designation  of  the  spouses  of  Christ, 
held  a  distinct  place  as  a  visible  order,  or  sodality,  in 
the  ecclesiastical  system,  taking  rank  above  the  class  of 
widows,  and  second  only  to  the  confessors,  or  those  who 
liad  triumpliantly  sustained  torture  from  the  hand  of  the 
heathen. 

Now  it  appears,  too  plainly,  from  the  stern  reproba- 
11 


.718  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

(ions,  and  the  indignant,  yet  repressed  flourishes  which 
mark  this  treatise,  that  a  laxity,  nay  a  licentiousness, 
hardly  to  be  believed,  and  little  suspected  by  tlie  gene- 
ral readers  of  church  history,  had  become  common 
among  these  religious  ladies,  of  the  church  of  Carthage. 
In  fact,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that,  to  indemnify  themselves 
for  the  abjuration  of  the  virtuous  happiness  of  domestic 
life,  they  had  become  proficients  in  every  meretricious 
allurement,  not  merely  bestowing  extraordinary  cares 
and  costs  upon  the  attractions  of  dress  and  jewellery, 
and  frequenting  scenes  of  indecent  revelry,  but  inviting 
and  allowing  the  grossest  familiarities  on  the  part  of 
their  spiritual  guides,  to  whom  they  had  a  too  easy  ac- 
cess; and  even  yielding  themselves  to  shameless  ex- 
posures in  the  public  baths,  of  which  ablutions  the  good 
bishop  well  and  smartly  says,  such  washings  do  not 
cleanse,  but  pollute  the  body,  and  not  only  the  body,  but 
the  soul.  That  the  indecencies  of  the  Carthagenian 
nuns  were  not  a  single  instance  of  irregularity,  may  be 
gathered  from  the  very  express  and  detailed  reference  to 
the  same  practices  made,  some  years  earlier,  by  Clement 
of  Alexandria,  who,  in  fact,  uses  expressions  which  one 
might  believe  Cyprian  to  have  read.  So  much  for  the 
boasted  purity  of  the  pristine  age  of  the  church!  How 
much  longer  is  comm(ui  sense  to  be  outraged  by  the  re- 
petition of  this  miserably  unmeaning  phrase — unmean- 
ing, unless  applied  with  the  greatest  caution,  and  a  se- 
vere limitation,  to  a  very  brief  period,  and  to  a  few  bright 
spots ! 

*'  But  now,"  continues  our  zealous  and  upright  pre- 
late, "I  have  to  address  myself  to  the  virgins,  (nuns,) 
whom,  as  their  reputation  is  so  much  the  more  exalted, 
we   must   make  the   objects  of  a  proportionate  care. 


OF  THE  AN'CIENT  CHURCH.  11^ 

These,  in  truth,  are  the  flowers  of  the  ecclesiastical 
plant,  the  grace  arjd  ornament  of  the  heavenly  grace;  a 
gladsome  produce,  a  work  whole  and  incorrupt  of  all 
honour  and  all  praise;  the  image  of  God,  reflecting  the 
sanctity  of  the  Lord,  and  the  most  illustrious  portion  of 
Christ's  flock.  By  these  (nuns)  and  in  these,  is  the 
noble  fecundity  of  mother  church  recommended,  and 
made  copiously  to  flourish ;  and  just  by  so  much  as  this 
plentiful  virginity  swells  its  numbers,  does  the  mother 
herself  augment  her  joys.  It  is  to  these,  then,  that  I 
speak;  it  is  these  I  proceed  to  exhort;  yet  in  aflfeclion, 
rather  than  in  the  tones  of  authority." 

I  must  here  remark  that,  already,  the  constant  and  in- 
evitable tendency  of  a  system,  essentially  superstitious, 
to  fix  the  attention,  even  of  the  best  men,  with  more  so- 
licitude, upon  what  is  extrinsic  and  symbolic,  than  upon 
what  is  moral,  spiritual,  and  rational,  had  fully  deve- 
loped itself  in  Cyprian's  time — indeed  it  is  the  general 
characterisiic  of  the  early  (as  of  later)  church  writers; 
and  it  is  the  capital  article  of  the  contrast  which  so 
forcibly  strikes  us  in  comparing  the  entire  body  of  an- 
cient religious  literature  with  the  scriptures.  The  apos- 
tles, without  contemning  or  forgetting  that  which  is  ex- 
terior, give  all  their  serious  cares  to  that  which  is  sub- 
stantial— to  the  weighty  matters  of  the  soul's  condition, 
spiritual  and  moral.  The  fathers,  on  the  contrary,  with- 
out contemning,  or  altogether  forgetting,  that  which  is 
substantial,  are  fretting  themselves  perpetually,  (like 
their  modern  admirers,)  and  chafing,  about  that  which 
is  subsidiary  only,  and  visible;  the  form,  the  institution, 
the  discipline,  the  canon;  in  a  word,  the  husk  of  reli- 
gion, fondly  thinking  that,  so  long  as  the  rind  and  shell 
of  piety  could  be  preserved  without  a  flaw,  there  could 


120  A  TEST  OF  THE  MOR^L  CONDITION 

be  no  doubt  of  the  preservation  of  the  kernel !  Alas ! 
these  ill-directed  anxieties  left  the  adversary,  at  his  lei- 
sure, to  perforate  the  shell  and  to  wilhcivavv  the  kernel, 
almost  to  the  last  atom !  Tiius  our  good  archbishop, 
after  saying  that  "  the  continence  and  pudicity  proper  to 
a  nun  do  not  consist  merely  in  the  inviolate  perfection 
of  the  body,"  leads  the  modern  reader,  at  least,  to  sur- 
mise that  he  is  about  to  recommend  the  inward  and  spi- 
ritual grace  of  genuine  purity  of  heart;  but  no,  this  is 
not  what  he  is  thinking  of — "  True  modesty,  beside  the 
integrity  of  the  body,  consists  in — the  fair  and  moc'est 
attire  and  ornament  of  the  person!"  Here  is  excellent 
quakerism,  as  well  as  popery,  and  both  sixteen  hundred 
years  old! 

*'  How  shall  they  receive  the  wages  of  virginity, 
which  they  are  looking  for  from  the  Lord,  unless  it  be 
evident  that  they  are  labouring  to  please  him,  and  none 
other?  ....  What,  then,  can  such  have  to  do  with  those 
terrestrial  decorations  which  are  attractive  to  the  eyes, 
not  of  the  Lord,  but  of  men  ?  as  Paul  says — If  I  seek 
to  please  men,  I  am  no  longer  the  servant  of  Christ. 
What  do  ornaments  mean ;  what  means  decking  of  the 
hair,  except  to  one  who  either  has,  or  who  is  seeking  a 
husband  ?  .  .  .  .  Peter  dehorts  married  women  from  an 
excessive  ornamenting  of  their  persons,  who  might  plead, 
in  excuse  of  their  fault,  the  will  and  taste  of  their  hus- 
bands ;  but  what  excuse  can  virgins  find  for  a  like  re- 
gard to  dress,  who  are  liable  to  no  such  interference  ?  .  .  . 
Thou,  if  thou  goest  abroad,  frequenting  public  places, 
sumptuously  arrayed,  alluring  the  eyes  of  youth,  draw- 
ing after  thee  the  sighs  of  admirers,  fomenting  lawless 
passions,  and  kindling  the  sparks  of  desire,  and  even,  if 
not  destroying  thyself,  destroying  others,  and  presenting 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  121 

to  their  bosoms  a  poisoned  dagger,  canst  not  excuse  thy- 
self on  the  pretence  of  preserving  a  mind  pure  and  mo- 
dest. Thy  pretext  is  shamed  by  thy  criminal  aliire  and 
thy  immodest  decorations  ;  nor  shouldst  thou  be  reck- 
oned among  the  maids  of  Christ,  who  so  livest  as  if 
wishing  to  captivate  and  to  be  loved  by  another." 

After  reprehending,  at  length,  and  on  various  grounds, 
costly  and  meretricious  decorations  of  the  person — the 
means  and  materials  of  which,  says  the  good  bishop, 
following  Tertullian,  were  given  to  mankind  by  the 
apostate  angels,  he  proceeds  to  specify  and  reprove  still 
more  criminal  excesses  which  had  become  matter  of 
scandal,  within  and  without  the  church,  and  had  afforded 
too  much  colour  to  the  calumnies  of  the  heathen.  Such 
were,  the  being  present  at  weddings,  "and  hearing  and 
taking  part  in  licentious  conversations  ;  hearing  what 
offends  jjood  morals,  and  seeing  what  must  not  be  spoken 
of.  .  .  What  have  the  virgins  of  the  church  to  do  at  pro- 
miscuous baths  ;  and  there  to  violate  the  commonest 
dictates  of  feminine  modesty!  .  ,  .  Sordidat  lavalio  ista, 
non  abluit;  nee  eniundat  membra,  sed  maculat.  Impu- 
dice  tu  neminem  conspicis,  sed  ipsa  conspiceris  impu- 
dice  :  oculos  tuos  turpi  obleclalione  non  polluis,  sed  dum 
oblecias  alios,  ipsa  poUueris.  .  .  .  The  places  (baths)  you 
frequent  are  more  filthy  than  the  theatre  itself;  all  mo- 
desty is  there  laid  aside,  and  with  your  robes,  your  per- 
sonal honour  and  reserve  are  cast  off.  .  .  Thus  it  is  that 
the  church  so  often  has  to  weep  for  her  virgins;  so  does 
she  bewail  their  infamy,  and  the  horrid  tales  which  get 
abroad.  .  .  ." 

"  Listen,  then,  to  him  who  seeks  your  true  welfare; 
lest,  cast  off  by  the  Lord,  ye  be  widows  before  ye  be 
married;  adulteresses,  not  lo  husbands,  but  to  Christ, 
11* 


122  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

and,  after  having  been  destined  to  the  highest  rewards, 
ye  undergo  the  severest  punishments.  .  .  For,  consider, 
while  the  hundred-fold  produce  is  that  of  the  martyrs, 
the  sixty-fold  is  yours  ;  and  as  they  (the  martyrs)  con- 
temn the  body  and  its  delights,  so  should  you.  Great 
are  the  wages  which  await  you,  (if  faithful ;)  the  high 
reward  of  virtue,  the  great  recompense  to  be  conferred 
upon  chastity.  Not  only  shall  your  lot  and  portion  (in 
the  future  life)  be  equal  to  that  of  the  other  sex ;  but  ye 
shall  be  equal  to  the  angels  of  God  !" 

So  much  then  for  the  zealous  and  upright  Cyprian, 
and  his  delinquent  stew  of  ecclesiastical  virginity,  at  Car- 
thage, and  so  much  for  the  venerable  sanctity  of  the  pris- 
tine age!  You  will  grant,  I  think,  tliat  the  urgent  con- 
troversy whicli  we  have  now  to  do  with,  and  which 
turns  so  much  upon  tlie  alleged  authority  of  antiquity, 
renders  this  species  of  evidence,  unpleasing  as  it  is  in 
itself,  yet  very  pertinent  in  reference  to  the  general  ques- 
tion. I  cannot  liowever  proceed  to  call  in  my  next  pair 
of  witnesses,  without  adverting  to  a  fact  which  forces  it- 
self upon  every  well  informed  and  reflecting  reader  of 
the  early  Christian  writers,  I  mean  the  much  higher 
moral  condition,  and  the  more  effective  discipline  of  the 
Romish  cliurch  in  later  times,  than  can  with  any  truth 
be  claimed  for  the  ancient  church,  even  during  its  era  of 
suffering  and  depression.  Our  ears  are  stunned  with 
the  outcry  against  the  "  corruptions  of  popery."  I 
boldly  say  that  popery,  foul  as  it  is,  and  has  ever  been, 
in  the  mass,  might  yet  fairly  represent  itself  as  a  reform 
upon  early  Chrlstianitij.  Do  not  accuse  me  of  the  wish 
to  starde  you  with  paradoxes.  I  will  not  swell  my  pages 
(which  will  have  enough  to  bear)  with  quotations  from 
modern  books  that  are  in  the  hands  of  most  religious 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  123 

readers.     In  truth,  volumes  of  unimpeachable  evidence 
might  be  produced,  establishing  the  fact,  that  the  later 
Roraish  churcli  lias  had  to  boast  eminent  virtues,  in  con- 
nexion with  her  monastic  institutions;  and  I  think  virtues, 
better  compacted,  and  more  consistent  than  belonged  to 
the  earlier  church.     Or,  to  refer  to  a  single  instance,  look 
into  the  various  narratives  that  have  been  published  re- 
lating to  the  Port-royal  institution,  as  governed  by  the 
illustrious  Angelica  Arnauld.     There  was  popery  entire; 
every  element  of  the  system  developed,  and  expanded, 
under  the  fervours  of  the  most  intense  religious  excite- 
ment!    I  beg  you  then,  in  idea,  to  place,  by  the  side  of 
this  band  of  virgins  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Cyprian's 
dissolute  crew,  the  decus  et  ornamentum,  of  the  martyr 
times  of  the  church!     If  you  say  these  are  picked  in- 
stances, I  deny  it,  so  far  as  my  argument  is  concerned 
in  the  comparison;  and  I  affirm  the  general  fact  that  the 
measures  taken  by  the  Romish  cliurch,  at  different  pe- 
riods, to  enforce  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy,  and  to  bring 
the  monastic  institution  under  the  tremendous,  but  neces- 
sary sanctions  which  at  length  were  resorted  to  for  hold- 
ing it  entire,  were  in  the  main,  measures  of  reform,  found, 
by  abundant  and  lengthened  experience,  to  be  indispen- 
sable as  the  means  of  excluding,  or  repressing  tlie  worst 
abuses; — that  is  to  say,  so  long  as  t!ie  core  of  the  institu- 
tion— the  immemorial  doctrine  of  religious  celibacy,  was 
to  be  maintained,  in  the  position  it  had  ever  held,  as  an 
essential  element  of  Christianity.   In  a  word,  the  plain  fact 
is,  that  this  foremost  and  hinging  article  of  ancient  Christi- 
anity, after  having,  from  century  to  century,  been  im- 
bodied  in  a  milder  or  less  compact  form,  and  its  usages 
enforced  with  less  rigour,  and  after  having  in  this  loose 
form,  ulcerated  the  church  in  a  frightfal  manner,  was  at 


124  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

length  brought  into  some  order  by  the  strenuous  hand  of 
authority,  aided  indeed  by  the  mad  fanaticism  of  certain 
fiery  spirits.     The  venerable  doctrine  of  the  merit  of  re- 
ligious celibacy  has  proved  itself  to  be  utterly  impracti- 
cable under  any  conditions  less  severe  than  those  which 
have,  since  the  middle  ages,  rendered  the  religious  houses, 
when  vigorously  governed,  dens  of  cruelty  and  despair. 
But  then  nothing  can  be  more  inequitable  than  to  charge 
these  horrors  upon  Romanism.     The  church  of  Rome 
has  done,  in  these  instances,  the  best  it  could,  to  bring 
the  cumbrous  abomination  bequeathed  to  it  by  the  saints 
and  doctors  and  martyrs  of  the  pristine  age,  into  a  ma- 
nageable condition.     And  if  we  are  to  hear  much  more 
of  the  "corruptions  of  popery,"  as  opposed  to  "  primi- 
tive purity,"  there  will  be  no  alternative  but  freely  to 
lay  open  the  sewers  of  the  early  church,  and  to  allow 
them  to  disgorge  their  contents  upon  the  wholesome  air. 
We  must  now,  however,  pursue  our  proposed  chain 
of  evidences  a  liitle  farther,  and  for  the  purpose  of  sub- 
stantiating, by  more  than  one  or  two  instances,  the  ge- 
neral proposition,  that  the  lapse  of  many  centuries,  though 
it  miglitgive  form  and  consistency  to  certain  mistaken 
notions,  did  not  materially,  if  at  all,  advance  the  princi- 
ples whence  the  whole  system  originated.     This  is  the 
very  point  which,  in  my  view  at  least,  is  more  than  any 
other,  of  importance  in  relation  to   th.e  controversy  at 
present  agitated,  and  you  must  pardon  me,  if  I  seem  to 
be  taking  unnecessary  pains  in  fully  establishing  it.     On 
these  subjects  utter  misapprehensions  have  extensively 
prevailed,  which  will  not  easily  give  way.     Before  we 
reprobate  popes,  councils,  and  Romanist  saints,  let  us 
fairly  see  what  sort  of  system  it  was  which  the  doctors 
and  martyrs  of  the  highest  antiquity  liad  delivered  into 
their  c-rire    and    oiislody.      We    protestants  are  prompt 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  125 

-enough  to  condemn  the  pontiffs,  or  St.  Bernard;  but  let 
inquiry  be  made  concerning  the  Christianity  imbodied 
in  the  writings  of  those  to  whom  popes  and  doctors 
looked  up,  as  tlieir  undoubted  masters. 

There  can  hardly  be  a  more  pertinent  comparison,  in 
relation  to  our  present  purpose,  than  the  one  I  now  in- 
stitute between  the  iUustrious  and  highly  gifted,  as  well 
as  potent  abbot  of  Clairvaux,  and  his  fiery  predecessor 
in  the  same  field  of  labour,  Tertullian.  In  such  a  pa- 
rallel we  find,  brought  into  opposition,  not  indeed  the 
formal  institutions,  and  the  legalized  practices  of  the  an- 
cient, and  of  the  later  church,  which  are  circumstantials 
only,  variable  in  themselves,  and  of  no  importance  in 
relation  to  any  controversy  that  can  be  carried  on  among 
protestants;  but  the  intimate  character,  or,  as  Lord  Bacon 
would  have  termed  it,  the  inner  form,  of  the  two  systems, 
which  in  truth  are  not  two,  but  one  and  the  same.  An 
interval  of  nine  hundred  years  is  surely  a  sufhcient  space 
for  showing,  in  any  case,  and  very  distinctly,  the  gradual 
operation  of  time,  in  modifying  opinions,  and  usages, 
whether  secular  or  ecclesiastical.  If  little  or  no  pro- 
gression be  discernible  within  the  compass  of  almost  a 
thousand  years,  we  may  pretty  confidently  assume  that 
the  system  in  question  had  reached  its  maturity  at  the 
earliest  date.  In  truth,  the  period  marked  off  from  the 
entire  field  of  church  history,  by  these  two  remarkable 
names,  may  properly  be  considered  as  inclusive  of  all 
those  characteristics  of  ancient  Christianity,  which  can 
have  any  bearing  upon  modern  controversies.  Popery 
has  at  no  moment  of  its  entire  existence,  been  more  it- 
self, than  it  was  in  the  age  of  St.  Bernard,  and  of  his 
nurseling.  Innocent  11. ,  nor  is  ancient  Christianity, 
ss  distinguished  from  the  Christianity  of  the  New  Tes- 


126  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

lament,  to  be  met  with  any  where  else  (at  this  early  date) 
so  vividly  pictured,  as  in  the  writings  of  the  African 
presbyter.  Nor  can  any  fair  demur  be  taiven  against 
him  (so  far  as  my  present  purpose  is  concerned)  either  on 
ihe  general  ground,  of  the  intemperance  and  extravagance 
of  his  dispositions,  or  the  particular  ground  of  his  fall 
into  Montanism;  inasmucii  as  I  sliall  avail  myself  of  his 
expressions  only  so  far  as  they  may  safely  be  considered 
as  indicative  of  the  sentiments  of  the  church  at  the  time, 
as  well  as  of  practices  then  prevalent,  and  so  far  too,  as 
these  expressions  and  sentiments  were  afterwards  caught 
np,  authenticated,  and  expanded,  by  the  series  of  catho- 
lic writers,  beginning  with  his  contemporaries,  and  on- 
wards. In  this  instance  I  foresee  and  preclude  the  ob- 
jection which  will  be  raised  against 'I'ertullian's  evidence, 
by  confining  myself  to  passages  wliich  itr.\y  be  matched, 
substantially,  from  the  works  of  the  most  orthodox  and 
the  most  esteemed  fathers. 

But  it  is  necessary  to  my  purpose,  first  to  give  a  sam- 
])le  of  the  ripe  Catholicism  (in  this  particular  feature  of 
the  ecclesiastical  system)  of  the  twelfth  century;  and 
then  to  compare  with  it  the  boasted  *' pristine  Ciirisli- 
anily,"  of  the  second  or  third  century;  that  is  to  say,  of 
a  period  when  the  immediate  successors  of  the  apostles 
were  still  personally  remembered. 

The  religious  course,  character,  and  writings  of  St. 
Bernard  are,  in  a  very  extraordinary  degree,  fraught  with 
pertinent  and  aireciing  instruction,  and  1  should  venture 
to  say  that  a  full  and  dispassionate  statement  of  what  this 
eminent  man  felt,  and  professed  to  feel,  and  of  what  he 
did,  and  of  what  he  incited  others  to  do,  or  permitted 
them  to  cloak  witii  his  name,  would  afford  as  effective 
a  caution  as  could  be  found  against  the  lamentable  illu- 
sions by  which   fervent  religious  minds,  in  every  age, 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  127 

have  been  endangered.  At  the  present  moment,  the  un- 
expected appearance,  anil  wide  prevalence  of  a  species 
of  religion  vividly  exemplitied  in  the  character  and  con- 
duct of  St.  Bernard,  mark  him  as  the  very  instance  which 
young  and  ardent  minds  should  seriously  consider. 

The  animated,  spirit-stirring  writings  of  this  Aither,  as 
entertaining  as  they  are  instructive,  abound  with  tender, 
as  well  as  vehement  and  vituperative  reproofs  of  the  cor- 
ruptions prevailing  in  the  church,  i/i  his  times,  and  espe- 
cially of  the  abuses  which,  in  every  age,  have  been  con- 
nected with  the  unnatural  doctrine  and  practice  of  reli- 
gious celibacy.  A  volume  might  be  filled  with  these  re- 
monstrant rhapsodies.  "  Heartily  do  I  wish,"  says  he, 
addressing  the  clergy,  "  that  it  were  more  the  practice 
among  us,  of  those  who  undertake  to  build  a  tower,  to 
sit  down  first,  and  count  the  cost,  lest  haply  they  find 
themselves  wanting  in  the  means  to  finish  their  work. 
Heartily  do  I  wish  that  those  who,  as  it  seems,  have  so 
little  command  over  their  passions,  and  rashly  make  pro- 
fession of  perfection,  would  scruple  to  enrol  their  names 
in  the  lists  of  celibacy.  Costly  indeed  is  this  tower, 
and  of  great  import  is  that  word  which  all  cannot  re- 
ceive. Belter  far  were  it  to  secure  salvaiion  on  the  low- 
level  of  the  faitliful  commonalty,  than,  in  the  loftiness 
of  the  clerical  dignity,  to  live  worse  than  they,  and  to 
be  judged  more  severely."  Expressions  these,  very 
nearly  resembling  those  of  St.  Cyprian,  above  riled. 

One's  heart  might  bleed  in  following  some  of  St.  Ber- 
nard's amplifications  on  this  subject.  But  no  proof  of 
the  impracticability,  or  of  the  pernicious  tendency,  or  of 
the  cruelty  of  this  main  article  of  ancient  Christianity^ 
could  avail  to  load  even  those  who  best  understood  hu- 
man nature,  to  call  in  questioa  either  its  validity  ox  its 


128  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

excellence :  on  the  contrary,  the  worse  it  was  found  i(y 
be  in  its  working,  (and  this  is  an  ordinary  occurrence  in 
matters  of  religion,)  the  more  extravagant  were  the  en- 
comiums lavished  upon  it.  I  need  hardly  remind  you 
that,  in  St.  Bernard's  sense,  the  term  chastity  does  7iot 
mean  that  Christian  and  rational  purity  of  the  heart 
which  the  apostles  recommend,  and  wliich  they  urge  as 
well  upon  the  married  as  the  unmarried  ;  but  that  artiti- 
eial  and  external  purity  of  the  monastic  system,,  to  which 
the  married  could  make  no  pretensions. 

"What  so  fair  as  this  chastity, — which  makes,  of  a 
man,  an  angel?  A  chaste  man  and  an  angel  differ  in- 
deed as  to  felicity,  but  not  as  to  virtue;  for,  although 
the  purity  of  the  angel  be  the  happier  of  the  two,  that 
of  the  man  must  be  admitted  to  be  the  more  energetic. 
It  is  chastity,  and  that  alone,  which,  in  this  abode  of 
mortality,  holds  forth  tiie  state  of  immortal  glory.  This 
alone,  (on  earth,)  where  the  rites  of  marriage  are  so- 
lemnized, vindicates  the  manners  of  that  blessed  region, 
where  tiiey  neither  marry,  nor  are  given  in  marriage; 
oilering,  as  one  may  say,  an  example,  or  experiment,  on 
earth,  of  that  heavenly  mode  of  life.  .  .  In  this  earthly 
vessel  of  ours  is  contained  the  fragrant  balsam,  (of  chas- 
tity,) by  virtue  of  which  the  mortal  elements  are  con- 
served incorrupt This  is  the  glory  of  the  single 

life,  to  live  the  life  of  an  angel,  while  occupying  the  body, 
as  of  a  beast." 

This  is  the  string,  harped  upon  again  and  again,  that 
the  religious  ccelebs  was  "  an  angel  among  beings  of  an 
inferior  order." 

"  Who,  then,  should  scruple  to  call  the  life  of  the  re- 
ligious ccslebs  a  celestial,  an  angelic  life  ?  or  what  will 
all  the  elect  be  in  the  resurrection,  which  ye  are  not  even 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  129 

iiow,  as  the  angels  of  God  in  heaven,  who  abstain  from 
matrimonial  connexions  ?  Ye  grasp,  my  beloved  brethren, 
the  pearl  of  great  price  ;  ye  grasp  that  sanctity  which 
renders  you  like  to  the  saints  (in  glory)  and  the  home 
servants  of  God,  as  saith  the  scripture — Incorruptness 
plnces  us  next  to  God.  Not  by  your  own  merits,  are  ye 
what  ye  are  ;  but  by  the  grace  of  God  :  and,  as  to  chas- 
tity and  sanctity,  I  may  call  you — terrestrial  angels, 
or  rather  citizens  of  heaven,  although  still  pilgrims  upon 
earth  ;  for,  so  long  as  we  are  in  the  body,  we  are  absent 
from  the  Lord."  In  all  this,  and  paores  to  t!ie  same  ef- 
fect miizht  easily  be  adduced,  you  will  not  fail  to  notice 
that  constant  characteristic  of  the  fathers — the  appropria- 
tion, or  usurpation  of  the  Scriptures,  in  behalf  of  the 
elite  of  the  church  ;  thus  depriving  the  mass  of  Chris, 
tians  of  almost  all  their  share  in  its  promises  and  con- 
solations. In  a  word,  the  entire  system  of  ancient 
Christianity,  was  a  monopoly  of  salvation,  leaving,  to  alt 
but  the  few,  notliing  better  than  a  remote  and  precarious 
probability  of  an  ulliinate  and  far  distant  escape  from 
perdition.  AVas  this  the  gospel,  preached  by  the  apos- 
tles ?  Yet,  as  we  shall  see,  it  was  the  natural  conse- 
quence of  the  false  principle  we  are  now  exposing;  and 
it  is  a  consequence  inseparable  from  every  similar  error 
in  refi^ird  to  Christian  institutions. 

While  St.  Bernard  is  before  me,  I  must  notice  a  par- 
ticular, which  I  may  hereafter  lose  sight  of,  but  which 
well  deserves  a  passing  observation,  in  connexion  with 
the  system  of  sentiments  recommended  in  the  Oxford 
Tracts.  Our  author  was  a  most  ardent  and  loquacious, 
nay,  I  must  really  say,  a  most  gallant  admirer  of  the 
queen  of  heaven.  Very  many  entire  pages  of  fulsome 
and  florid  rhetoric  are  devoted  to  her  peculiar  honour, 
\% 


130  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

and  every  epithet  lliat  the  most  exorbitant  superstition 
could  coin,  animated  by  sundry  erotic  phrases,  is  coined, 
or  adapted  to  tlie  purpose  of  lifting  this  "  unique  being,'* 
ihe  "dispensatrix  of  the  universe,"  and  "dowager  of  cre- 
ation," above  the  level  of  things  finite.  It  is,  therefore, 
only  what  we  uiight  expect,  that  St.  Bernard  is  a  great 
stickler  for  that  caj)ital  article  of  ancient  orthodoxy — 
the  "  perpetual  virginity  of  the  blessed  Mary,"  a  denial  of 
which  actually  horrified  every  stanch  churchman.  But 
why,  it  may  be  asked,  was  there  all  this  anxiety  on  a 
point,  apparenUy  so  remote  from  any  practical  bearing? 
Why? — because  the  blessed  Virgin — "always  virgin," 
as  the  Oxford  writers  are  now  telling  us,  with  a  solemn 
and  significant  emphasis, — was  wanted,  as  the  patroness 
of  celibacy,  and  the  bright  example  of  immaculate  chas- 
tity. To  have  admitted  the  plain  sense  of  the  intelligi- 
ble phrase  employed  by  the  inspired  evangelist,  in  refe- 
rence to  this  inconsequential  point,  would  have  been 
tantamount  to  a  betrayal  of  the  whole  scheme  of  eccle- 
siastical celibacy.  Only  let  it  be  granted  that  the  virtue 
of  the  "mother  of  God"  was  simply  real  virtue,  and 
that  her  piety  was  a  principle  of  the  heart,  and  that  her 
purity  was  the  purity  of  the  affections;  and  only  allow 
that  she  was  a  holy  woman,  and  an  exemplary  wife  and 
mother,  such  as  the  apostles  speak  of,  and  commend, 
only  to  have  done  this,  would  have  marred  the  entire 
scheme  of  theology  and  morals,  as  fancied,  fashioned, 
and  perfected  by  the  ancient  church.  The  perpetual  in- 
violateness  of  the  blessed  Virgin  was  well  felt  to  be  the 
key-stone  of  the  building;  or,  to  change  the  figure, 
Mary's  unloosened  zone  was  the  tier  of  the  ecclesias- 
tical dome,  the  rending  of  which  would  have  been  a  uni- 
versal crash.      So  firm  and  fixed   are   those  analogies 


or  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  131 

which  bind  systems  together,  when,  from  age  to  age, 
they  reappear,  that,  by  a  perhaps  unconscious  and  in- 
stinctive tendency,  the  modern  promulgators  of  ancient 
Christianity  are,  with  a  significant  sensitiveness,  pro- 
truding this  great  orthodox  verity,  of  the  perpetual  vir- 
ginity of  the  mother  of  God:  they  are  just  putting  it 
forth,  or  shoving  it  forward  in  advance  of  their  steps, 
as  an  indispensable  preparative  for  their  after-work,  in 
church  reform.  Do  not  imagine  that  this  point  is  an  in- 
significant one:  you  will  find  that  it  touches  the  inti- 
mate springs  of  the  system  ;  and  I  venture  to  predict, 
that,  unless  these  good  men  take  the  alarm  in  time,  and 
hold  back  a  little,  until  they  feel  iheir  success  to  be  bet- 
ter assured,  we  shall  hear  something  more  than  we  have 
yet  heard,  about  the  "always  virgin."  Listen,  for  one 
moment,  to  our  zealous  advocate  of  Mary's  honours  ; 
and  there  is  the  more  reason  for  doing  so,  because,  as 
-vve  shall  find,  he  only  echoes  the  voice'of  all  antiquity, 
keeping  to  the  quod  semper,  quod  ubique,  quod  ab  om- 
nibus, concerning  so  fundamental  a  principle  of  religion. 

"She  alone,"  says  St.  Bernard,  "of  all  born  of  women, 
was  born  without  sin,  and  preserved  sinless  throughout 
her  life.  Well  indeed  did  become  the  queen  of  virgins, 
this  singular  privilege  of  sanctity,  to  pass  a  life  abso- 
lutely exempt  from  sin  !"  Thus,  and  with  equal  zeal 
and  confidence,  at  least  as  to  the  "  perpetual  virginity," 
speak  the  devout  Basil,  the  truly  great  iithanasius,  and 
fifty  others — all  inwardly,  if  not  avowedly  conscious, 
thrt  this  article  of  their  faiih  was  of  vital  consequence 
to  their  system. 

"  How  are  my  eyes  dazzled  by  ilie  splendour  of  the 
diadem  of  our  queen,  which  illuminates  the  universe  .  .  . 
what  then  are  the  stars  in  this  refulgent  diadem — the  chief 


132 


A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 


honours  of  virginity,  and  these  prerogatives — to  have 
conceived  without  corruption — to  have  been  gravid  with- 
out burden — to  have  given  birth  without  pain!  .  .  .  ." 

In  fact,  this  Cybele  of  tiie  fathers  was  to  be  consti- 
tuted a  goddess,  in  all  points,  and  she  became,  at  length, 
the  real  and  principal  object  of  the  religious  sentiments 
of  the  (so  called)  Christian  world.  But  who,  let  it  be 
asked,  were  the  authors  of  this  unutterable  idolatry? 
Who  was  it  tliat  set  these  blasphemies  a-going? — not 
the  popes,  not  the  later  Roman  doctors;  but  none  other 
than  tlie  early  teachers  of  Christianity,  who,  having  once 
assumed  a  false  principle  in  religion,  were  thenceforward 
carried,  by  a  latent  and  irresistible  tendency,  to  adopt 
every  absurd  and  impious  notion  that  might  favour  it.  I 
might,  to  some  good  purpose,  detain  you  yet  with  St. 
Bernard,  on  whose  pages,  and  entirely  apart  from  his 
Romanism,  we  find  expanded  the  gay  petals  of  those 
buds  which  already  show  their  colours  in  the  writings 
of  the  early  fathers.  I  have  gathered  a  sample  only, 
such  as  may  serve  to  arrest  attention,  when  brought  into 
comparison  with  corresponding  passages  of  a  thousand 
years'  earlier  date. 

"  But  now,  let  me  ask,"  says  St.  Bernard,  address- 
ing the  clergy,  "  how  do  the  bishops  and  priests  of  this 
our  age  study  to  preserve  that  sanctity  of  continence,  in 
heart  and  person,  wMthout  which  no  man  shall  see  the 
liord?  Truly  h.ath  the  Lord,  in  the  gospel,  said  to 
l)ishops,  and  without  doubt  it  was  so  in  the  primitive 
church,  let  your  loins  be  girt,  thereby  not  merely  ap- 
proving but  commanding  chastity  (celibacy) — the  Holy 
Spirit  this  signiCying,  that  no  one  should  come  near  the 
table  of  the  Lord,  or  approach  that  angels'  food,  unless 
purified  in  mind  and  body; — that  is,  by  the  observance 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  133 

of  a  strict  celibacy.  But  how  do  v:e  regard  this  injunc- 
tion?— I  think  it  better,  on  this  head,  to  dissimulate  a 
little,  rather  than,  by  speaking  out,  to  say  what  might 
scandalize  the  innocent  and  uninformed.  And  yet  why 
should  I  scruple  to  speak  of  that,  which  they  (the  bishops 
and  clergy)  do  not  blush  to  perpetrate?  Brethren,  I  am 
become  a  fool;  but  ye  have  compelled  me." 

A  passage  presents  itself,  in  this  connexion,  which, 
while  it  affords  a  characteristic  example  of  the  perverted 
style  of  applying  scripture,  is  curious,  as  a  conceit  played 
with  by  writer  after  writer,  from  Tertuiiian  to  St,  Ber- 
nard, and  as  we  have  seen,  among  others  by  Cyprian. 

"  I  beseech  you,  my  beloved  sister,  hear  with  ail  re- 
verence the  word  of  exhortation.  .  .  .  The  thirty-fold  is 
the  first  degree,  and  it  signifies  the  alliances  of  the  mar- 
ried; the  sixty-fold  is  the  second  step,  and  signifies  the 
continence  of  widows;  the  hundred-fold  is  the  third  step, 
in  this  gradation  of  ranks;  and  it  intends  the  crown  of 
chastity,  destined  for  virgins.  .  .  .  Conjugal  virtue  is 
good,  the  virtue  of  widows  is  better;  but  best  is  the  in- 
tegrity of  absolute  virginity.  Nevertheless,  better  is  an 
humble  widow,  than  a  haughty  virgin;  better  a  widow 
mourning  her  sins,  than  a  virgin  boasting  of  her  virgi- 
nity. .  .  .  Nor  ought  such  to  contemn,  or  to  glory  over, 
married  women,  living  virtuously.  When,  therefore, 
honest  wives  frequent  the  monastery,  despise  them  not; 
they  are  the  handmaidens  of  the  Lord;  love  them  as  mo- 
thers. And  thou,  say  not  that  thou  art  a  dry  tree,  for  if 
thou  lovest  thy  Spouse,  Christ,  thou  hast  seven  sons; 
thy  first-born,  is  modesty,  thy  second,  patience,  ihy 
third,  sobriety,  thy  fourth,  temperance,  thy  fifth,  charity, 
thy  sixth,  humility,  thy  seventh,  chastity.  Thus  hast 
thou,  my  venerable  sister,  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  borne 
12* 


134       A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

unto  Christ,  and  without  pain,  seven  sons;  that  the  scrip- 
ture might,  be  fulfilled — the  barren  halh  borne  seven." 
Once  more,  and  requesting  you  to  turn  to  a  passage  al- 
ready quoted  from  Cyprian,  take  the  following,  which 
may  suffice  to  show  that  the  sentiment  and  style  of  speak- 
ing characteristic  of  ripened  Romanism,  was  nothing  but 
an  echo  of  the  sentiments  and  language  of  the  earliest 
times;  as  will  farther  appear  from  other  evidence  I  have 
to  produce. 

*'  We  come  now  to  contemplate  the  lily  blossom:  and 
see,  O  thou,  the  virgin  of  Christ!  see  how  much  fairer 
is  this  thy  flower,  than  any  other!  look  at  the  special 
grace  which,  beyond  any  other  flower  of  the  earth,  it 
hath  obtained!  Nay,  listen  to  the  commendation  be- 
stowed upon  it  by  the  Spouse  himself,  when  he  saith — 
Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field  (the  virgins)  how  they 
grow,  and  yet  I  say  unto  you  that  Solomon  in  all  his 
glory,  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these!  Read  there- 
fore, O  virgin,  and  read  again,  and  often  read  again,  and 
again,  this  word  of  thy  Spouse,  and  understand  how, 
ill  the  commendation  of  this  flower,  he  commends  thy 
glory!  He,  the  all-wise  Creator,  and  Architect  of  all 
things,  veils  all  the  glory  of  this  world,  just  with  thy 
blossom:  nor  only  is  the  glory  equalled  by  the  flower; 
but  he  sets  tlie  flower  above  all  glory.  In  the  glory  of 
Solomon  you  are  to  understand  that,  whatever  is  rich 
and  great  on  earth,  and  the  choicest  of  all,  is  prefigured; 
and  in  the  bloom  of  thy  lily,  which  is  thy  likeness,  and 
that  of  all  the  virgins  of  Christ,  the  glory  of  virginity 

is  intended See  how,  in  this  song  of  loves,  the 

Spouse  insists  upon  his  fondness  for  thee — the  lily — 
saying,  as  the  lily  among  the  thorns,  so  is  my  beloved 
Mmong  the  daughters;  and   again,  my  beloved  goes  up 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  133 

to  his  spicy  flower  beds,  and  gathers  lilies.  Admirable 
lily!  the  love  of  the  Spouse!  lovely  lily!  which  is  ga- 
thered by  the  Spouse!  Not  truly,  as  I  ween,  is  it  ga- 
thered that  it  should  wither;  but  that  it  should  be  laid 
upon  the  golden  altar,  which  is  before  the  eyes  of  the 
Lord.  .  .  .  Virginity  hath  indeed  a  two-fold  prerogative, 
a  virtue  which,  in  others,  is  single  only;  for  while  all 
the  church  is  virgin  in  soul,  having  neither  spot,  nor 
Avrinkle;  being  incorrupt  in  faith,  hope,  and  charity,  on 
which  account  it  is  called  a  virgin,  and  merits  the  praises 
of  the  Spouse,  what  praise,  tfiink  you,  are  our  lilies 
worthy  of,  who  possess  tliis  purity  in  body,  as  well  as 
in  soul,  which  the  church  at  large  has  in  soul  only!  In 
truth,  the  virgins  of  Christ  are,  as  we  may  say,  the  fat 
and  marrow  of  the  church,  and  by  right  of  an  excellence 
altogether  peculiar  to  themselves,  they  enjoy  his  most 
familiar  embraces." 

A  passage  already  cited  from  Cyprian,  and  a  passage 
too,  not  cited  (occurring  in  his  treatise  on  the  attire  of 
nuns)  though  not  so  pretty,  is  substantially  equivalent  to 
this  of  St.  Bernard;  and  it  goes  the  whole  length  of  those 
utterly  improper  accommodations,  which,  when  ad- 
dressed to  sickly  and  sensitive  feminine  imaginations, 
must  have  had  a  most  pernicious  and  degrading  ten- 
dency. 

So  sprightly  a  conceit  as  this,  was  not  to  be  hastily 
thrown  aside,  and  we  find  the  reverend  gallant,  with  the 
bevy  of  fair  ladies  before  him,  carrying  on  his  pleasant 
discourse  much  farther  than  we  have,  at  present,  either 
leisure  or  inclination  to  follow  him.  We  shall  soon  see 
in  what  style  the  hot  and  crabbed  Tertullian  handles  si- 
milar topics;  not  nearly  indeed  so  much  in  the  mode  of 
the  rosy-lipped,  and  scented  petit  maitre,  but  yet  so  as 


136        A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITIOX 

to  include  all  the  substance  of  the  same  system  of  per- 
verted theology,  and  of  miserably  corrupt  morality. 

But  before  adducing  my  next  set  of  evidences,  I  re- 
quest you  again  to  notice  the  instances  contained  in  the 
above  quotations,  of  what  I  have  called  the  usurping  of 
scripture,  and  which  is  the  general  characteristic  of  the 
early  Christian  divines — that  is,  the  taking  texts  in  spe- 
cial senses,  not  simply  in  the  way  of  misapplication  (a 
fault  that  has  been  too  common  in  all  ages)  but  restrict- 
ing a  passage  which  manifestly  bears  a  broad  meaning, 
to  some  technical  purpose;  thus  robbing  the  church  at 
large  of  its  portion;  as  in  an  instance  above  cited,  where, 
whatever  is  said  concerning  instruction  and  correction, 
is  made  to  mean — the  discipline  of  the  monastery:  or 
when,  as  we  find  in  St.  Bernard,  purity  and  sanctity  are 
made  to  mean — virginity,  and  an  artilicial  abjuration  of 
the  social  relationships.  Now  you  may  be  charitably 
willing  to  believe  that  this  was  nothing  worse  that  an 
incidental  error  of  practice,  in  the  interpretation  of  scrip- 
ture. P^or  my  own  part,  meeting  with  it,  as  I  do,  every 
where,  or  nearly  so,  in  the  remains  of  Christian  an- 
tiquity; and  especially  in  connexion  with  the  supersti- 
tions of  the  early  church,  I  regard  it  as  the  natural  re- 
sult, and  the  inevitable  concomitant,  of  the  adoption  of  a 
grand  false  principle  in  religion,  the  support  of  which 
absolutely  demanded,  at  every  turn,  some  such  introver- 
sion of  the  plain  meaning  of  the  inspired  writers.  But 
this  is  a  subject  of  such  prime  significance,  as  that  it 
will  ask  to  be  more  fully  considered  hereafter. 

I  am  now  to  bring  forward  the  most  vigorous,  as  well 
as  one  of  the  earliest  of  the  Christian  writers,  and  the 
contemporary  of  men  who  had  converged  with  the  im- 
inediate  successors  of  the  apostles. 


or  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  137 

Tertullian,  in  the  first  of  his  epistles  to  his  wife,  dis- 
suading her  from  contracting  a  second  marriage,  in  the 
event  of  his  death  (a  curious  affair  altogether)  says — 
*'  against  all  (specious  reasons  of  a  contrary  tendency, 
and  which  he  had  enumerated)  employ  the  example  of 
OUR  SISTERS  (the  dedicated  virgins)  whose  names  are  with 
the  Lord — penes  Dominum  (enrolled  as  nuns  in  the 
church  books)  and  who  place  sanctity  (that  is  to  say, 
virginity)  above  all  considerations  of  beauty  or  of  youth, 
which  might  induce  them  to  marry:  they  had  rather  be 
married  to  the  Lord;  in  his  eyes  fair,  on  him  they  wait 
as  his  handmaids,  with  him  they  live;  with  him  they 
converse  ;  him,  night  and  day  they  handle  (tractant;j 
their  prayers,  as  their  dowry,  they  render  to  him,  and 
from  him,  as  pin  money,  they  receive,  from  time,  to 
time,  whatsoever  they  desire.  Thus  have  ihey  now  an- 
ticipated that  eternal  good  which  is  the  gift  of  the  Lord, 
and  thus,  while  on  earth,  in  not  marrying,  they  are  reck- 
oned as  belonging  to  the  angelic  household.  By 
using  the  example  of  women,  such  as  these,  you  will 
incite,  in  yourself,  an  emulation  of  their  continence, 
and  by  the  spiritual  taste  break  down  carnal  affections, 
freeing  your  soul  from  the  stains  of  the  transitory  de- 
sires belonging  to  youth  and  beauty,  by  the  thought  of 
the  recompense  of  immortal  benefits." 

You  will  observe  in  this  passage  first,  the  clear  re- 
ference to  the  established  custom,  at  this  early  time,  of 
vowing  perpetual  virginity;  and  then,  that  identity  of 
principle,  and  analogy  of  sentiment,  and  even  corre- 
spondence in  terms,  which  all  serve  to  support  ray  pro- 
position, That  this  principal  element  of  ancient  Chris- 
tianity, was  as  fully  developed,  or  nearly  so,  in  the  se- 
cond and  third  century,  as  in  the  thirteenth.     In  what 


138  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

follows  you  will  readily  distinguish  the  extravagance  of 
Tertullian's  personal  opinions,  from  those  generally  ad- 
mitted notions,  on  the  ground  of  which  he  argues  in  ad- 
dressing others.  It  is  with  the  latter,  not  the  former, 
that  we  are  at  present  concerned.  In  the  passage  to  be 
cited,  our  author  gives  the  clue  (which  may  indeed  else- 
where be  found  clearly  enough,  and  of  which,  hereafter, 
I  must  make  some  use)  to  the  institution  of  celibacy,  as 
a  permanent  order  in  the  church.  Satan  had  his  de- 
voted widows,  and  his  virgin  priestesses,  and  siiould  not 
Christ  have  the  like?  The  v/ell-known  heathen  prac- 
tices, in  tiiis  respect,  were  looked  upon  with  a  sort  of 
jealousy,  by  the  ill-judging  leaders  of  the  church,  vvlio 
deemed  it  a  point  of  honour,  not  to  be  outdone  in  any 
extravagant  act  or  practice  of  devotion,  by  the  gentiles, 
over  whom  they  might  have  been  content  to  claim  the 
genuine  superiority  of  real  virtue.  The  same  fatal  am- 
bition, as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  operated  as  a  principal 
means  of  perverting  the  ritual  and  system  of  worship, 
and  of  spoiling,  in  all  its  parts,  the  simplicity  of  the 
gospel. 

"  Among  the  heathen,"  says  Tertullian,  "  a  strictness 
of  discipline,  in  this  respect,  is  observed,  which  ours  do 
not  submit  to.  But  these  restraints  the  devil  imposes  on 
his  servants,  and  he  is  obeyed;  and  hereby  stimulates 
the  servants  of  God  to  reach  an  equal  virtue.  The  priests 
of  gehenna  retain  their  continence;  for  the  devil  knows 
how  to  destroy  men,  even  in  the  practice  of  the  virtues; 
and  he  cares  not,  so  that  he  does  but  slay  them,  whether 
it  be  by  the  indulgence  of  the  flesh,  or  by  mortifying  it." 

Well  would  it  have  been  for  the  church,  had  this  dou- 
ble dealing  of  the  adversary  been  ilioroughly  understood, 
and  so  those  devices  resisted,  which  were  as  fatal  to  the 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  139 

serious  and  fervent  as  the  common  bails  of  sensuality 
are  to  the  mass  of  mankind  !  A  false  principle  once  as- 
sumed, under  strong  excitements,  has  the  power  to  in- 
fatuate even  the  strongest  and  the  best  informed  minds, 
and  to  lead  them  to  any  extent  of  extravagance.  Thus 
we  find  our  author,  having  firmly  attached  himself  to 
the  then  prevalent  belief,  that  there  could  be  no  virtue  or 
purity,  worth  the  name,  apart  from  celibacy;  or,  in  other 
\vords,  that  even  the  lawful  matrimonial  connexion  was, 
in  some  degree,  of  the  nature  of  vice;  or  was,  as  some 
of  them  did  not  scruple  to  terra  it,  stuprum  conjugale, 
goes  about,  with  a  perverse  ingenuity,  to  prove  that  God 
had,  under  the  new  dispensation  of  grace,  actually  re- 
scinded the  constitutions  of  nature.  This  instance  of 
audacious  exposition  is  really  remarkable. 

..."  The  command — Increase  and  multiply,  is  abo- 
lished. Yet,  as  I  think  (contrary  to  the  gnostic  opinion) 
this  command,  in  the  first  instance,  and  now  the  removal 
of  it,  are  from  one  and  the  same  God;  who  then,  and 
in  that  early  seed-time  of  the  human  race,  gave  the  reins 
to  the  marrying  principle,  until  the  world  should  be  re- 
plenished, and  until  he  had  prepared  the  elements  of  a 
new  scheme  of  discipline.  But  now,  in  this  conclusion 
of  the  ages,  he  restrains  what  once  he  had  let  loose,  and 
revokes  what  he  Jiad  permitted.  The  same  reason  go- 
verns the  continuance,  at  first,  of  that  which  is  to  pre- 
pare for  the  future.  In  a  thousand  instances,  indulgence 
is  granted  to  the  beginnings  of  things.  So  it  is  that  a 
man  plants  a  wood,  and  allows  it  to  grow,  intending,  in 
due  time,  to  use  the  axe.  The  wood,  then,  is  the  old 
dispensation,  which  is  done  away  by  the  gospel,  in 
which  the  axe  is  laid  to  the  root  of  the  tree." 

Had  Tertullian  never  read  our  Lord's  solemn  re-an- 
nouncement of  the  old  law — "wherefore  a  man  shall 


140        A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

leave,"  &c.,  or  Paul's  assertion  of  the  apostolic  liberty, 
to  "  lead  about  a  wife,"  or  his  injunction  that  the  minis- 
ters of  religion  should  be  husbands?  But  all  this  took 
no  hold  of  his  mind,  inasmuch  as  lie,  and  the  church  of 
his  time,  had  thoroughly  substituted  for  the  genuine  idea 
of  virtue  and  purity,  an  artificial  and  unnatural  institute, 
having  its  gradations  of  excellence,  the  topmost  glory 
being  claimed  for  the  Lord's  spotless  nuns!  Thus  was 
the  form  of  godliness  zealously  cared  for,  while  the  sub- 
stance of  it  was  forgotten. 

"  May  it  not  suffice  thee  to  have  fallen  from  that  high 
rank  of  immaculate  virginity,  by  once  marrying,  and  so 
descending  to  a  second  stnge  of  honour?  Must  thou  yet 
fall  farther;  even  to  a  third,  to  a  fourth,  and,  perhaps, 
yet  lower?"  .... 

It  was  the  inevitable  consequence  (a  consequence 
which,  in  fact,  instantly  followed)  of  the  notion  that 
celibacy  was  a  high  merit,  and  matrimony  a  defilement 
and  a  discredit,  that  this  peculiar  advantage  should  at- 
tach to  the  ministers  of  religion:  the  natural  inference  is 
expressly  pointed  out  by  most  of  the  early  writers  ;  and 
thus  it  came  about  that  the  Lord's  appointment,  declared 
in  so  many  words,  was  nullified  by  the  absurd  and  im- 
pious inventions  of  men.  Very  early  the  married  clergy 
were  regarded  as  a  degraded  class,  insulted  by  their  ar- 
rogant, and  often  profligate,  or,  at  least,  fanatical  col- 
leagues, and  held  in  no  esteem  by  the  people.  Of  what 
avail  is  it,  then,  to  inquire  at  what  date,  precisely,  the 
celibacy  of  the  clergy  was  authoritatively  enjoined,  as  if 
\ve  wished  to  make  good  an  impeachment  of  the  papal 
power?  This  injunction,  and  the  enforcement  of  it, 
ought  rather  to  be  regarded  as  acts  of  mercy,  than  as 
instances  of  tyranny;  so  long  as  the  ancient  principle  of 
the  merit  of  celibacy  was  to  be  maintained.   For,  in  fact, 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  141 

submission  to  a  universally  imposed  law  is  far  easier 
than  a  compliance  with  a  variable  custom,  or  prejudice, 
which  may  be  broken  through.  Under  painful  condi- 
tions of  any  kind,  the  mind  much  sooner  acquiesces  in 
a  stern,  irrevocable  rule,  than  in  a  partial  and  often  re- 
laxed usage.  Besides,  the  enforcement  of  celibacy  re- 
moved, at  once,  the  invidious  distinction  that  had  ob- 
tained between  the  married  and  the  unmarried  clergy;  and 
it  set  the  seculars,  at  least,  all  on  one  level.  It  was  an 
act  of  mercy,  therefore,  quite  as  much  as  of  severity; 
and,  for  ourselves,  we  must  not  be  so  inequitable  as  to 
throw  the  blame  upon  popery.  Who  was  it,  but  the 
doctors  of  the  pristine  church,  that  have  made  themselves 
answerable  for  the  corruptions  and  the  miseries,  the  tears, 
the  agonies  of  remorse,  the  perversions  of  nature,  the 
debaucheries,  the  cruelties,  that  have  directly  resulted 
from  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy,  through  a  long  course 
of  ages  (not  to  include,  now,  the  monkish  institutions) 
who  but  the  sincere  and  devout,  many  of  them,  but 
deplorably  mistaken,  men  that  are  now  quoted  as  our 
masters  in  Christian  ethics  and  theology? 

But  I  have  not  quite  done  with  Tertullian.  The  legal 
education  and  dialectic  habits  of  this  writer,  as  well  as 
his  natural  sagacity,  made  him  perceive  more  clearly, 
and,  perhaps,  sooner  than  others,  that  practices  such  as 
those  involved  in  the  discipline  and  order  of  celibacy 
could  not  be  maintained,  or  enforced,  even  after  perverse 
ingenuity  and  exorbitant  rhetoric  had  done  their  ut- 
most, in  the  way  of  exaggeration,  without  the  aid  of 
some  general  principle,  such  as  should  bear  any  weigh* 
that  might  be  thrown  upon  it,  and  which  the  scriptures 
could  not  be  made  to  sustain.  We,  therefore,  find  hin^ 
very  deliberately  going  to  work  to  lay  this  necessary 
13 


142  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

foundation,  whereon  might  be  reared,  and  whereon,  in 
fact,  has  been  reared,  a  vast  and  ever-growing  super- 
structure of  superstition,  human  devices,  and  tyrannous 
canons. 

In  commencing  the  present  argument  with  the  subject 
of  the  ancient  doctrine  concerning  virginity,  I  have  felt 
that  it  would  open  to  us  the  most  accessible,  and  the 
most  direct  path,  to  the  principle  which  is  really  at  issue 
between  the  favourers  of  antiquiiy  and  their  opponents; 
and  I  think  you  will  admit,  in  tlie  end,  that  I  have  not 
taken  up  the  wrong  ckie.    In  the  treatise  concerning  the 
veiling  of  nuns — by  the  way,  do  not  startle  at  the  term 
as  employed  by  a  writer  of  the  pristine  age,  for  at  this 
time  the  word  virgo  had,  among  church  writers,  already 
acquired  its  technical  sense,  and,  in  fact,  conveyed  all 
the  meaning  afterwards  attached  to  the  more  peculiar 
epithet  nonna;  in  this  elaborate  treatise,  in  which  all 
the  subtleties  of  a  special  pleader  are  exhausted  upon  a 
theme  utterly  frivolous,  Tertullian,  at  the  outset,  having 
laid  down  the  immoveable  principles  of  faith,  as  summa- 
rily expressed  in  the  apostles'  creed,  affirms  that  what 
affects  discipline  and  Christian  behaviour,  must  admit 
perpetual  correction  (or  alteration)  even  to  the  end  of 
time;  as  it  were  to  adapt  the  Christian  scheme  to  the  in 
cessant  opposite  agency  of  the  devil.     "  Wherefore  it  is 
that  the  Lord  hath  sent  the  Comforter,  that,  as  the  fee- 
bleness of  human  nature  could  not  at  once  receive  the 
whole  truth,  it  might,  by  degrees,  be  directed  and  regu- 
lated, and  led  on,  until  the  system  of  discipline  had 
reached  perfection,  under  the  vicarious  influence  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  of  the  Lord  (ab  illo  vicario  Domini  Spiritii 
sancto.)     "I  have  many  things  yet  to  say  unto  you," 
saith  he,  "  but  ye  cannot  sustain  them  at  present:  but 
when  He,  the  Spirit  of  truth  is  come,  he  will  lead  you 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  143 

into  all  truth,  and  will  declare  to  you  things  that  are  to 
be  superadded,"  (supervenientia,  instead  of  quae  venturae 
sunt) — concerning-  wliich  office  (of  the  Spirit)  he  had 
above  spoken.  What,  then,  is  this  administration  of 
the  Comforter,  unless  it  consist  in  such  things  as  these 
; — that  matters  of  discipline  be  ordered,  that  the  (sense 
pf  the)  scriptures  be  opened,  that  the  mind  (of  the 
church)  be  restored,  and  that  it  should  be  advanced  to- 
ward what  is  better?  There  is  nothing  that  does  not 
advance  by  age.  All  things  wait  upon  time,  as  the 
preacher  saiih,  there  is  a  time  for  every  thing.  Look 
at  the  natural  world,  and  see  the  plant  gradually  ripen- 
ing to  its  fruit,  first  a  mere  grain;  from  the  grain  arises 
the  green  stalk,  and  from  the  stalk  shoots  up  the  shrub; 
then  the  boughs  and  branches  get  strength,  and  the  tree 
is  complete:  thence  the  swelling  bud;  and  from  the  bud, 
the  blossom;  and  from  the  flower  the  fruit;  which,  at  the 
first  crude  and  shapeless,  by  little  and  little  proceeds, 
and  attains  its  ripe  softness  and  flavour.  And  so  in  re- 
ligion, (justitia,)  for  it  is  the  same  God  of  nature,  and  of 
religion:  at  first  in  its  rudiments  only,  nature  surmising 
something  concerning  God;  then  by  the  law  and  the 
prophets  advanced  to  its  infant  state;  then  by  the  gospe: 
it  reached  the  heats  of  youth  ;  and  now,  by  the  Com- 
forter, is  moulded  to  its  maturity." 

In  the  tract,  De  Corona,  in  a  passage  which  has  of 
late  been  several  times  quoted,  and  to  which  I  must 
hereafter  revert,  Tertullian  expounds  the  same  principle ; 
but  farther  on,  in  the  same,  after  going  through  with  his 
argument  on  the  grounds  of  nature,  scripture,  and  custom, 
or  the  established  discipline  of  the  apostolic  churches, 
our  author  proceeds,  *'  Scripture  is  of  God,  nature  is  of 
God,  discipline  (usage)  is  of  God ;  and  whatever  con- 
tradicts these  is  not  of  God.     If  in  any  case   scripture 


144  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

be  ambiguous,  nature  is  indubitable,  and,  sustained  by- 
its  testimony,  scripture  cannot  be  uncertain ;  or  if  there 
were  yet  any  doubt  concerning  the  evidence  of  nature, 
the  discipline,  (usage  of  the  churclies)  which  is  more 
directly  authenticated  by  God,  shows  the  way." 

With  a  more  important  purpose  in  hand,  I  refrain 
from  quoting  the  amusing  peroration  of  this  tract.  Let 
uspause  then  a  moment  upon  the  passage  quoted,  which 
so  appositely  concludes  the  citations  already  made,  un- 
der this  head  of  my  argument.  We  have  seen,  not 
merely  the  fact  attested,  of  the  early  existence  of  the 
institution  of  celibacy,  as  a  standing  and  prominent  part 
of  the  ecclesiastical  system,  but  have  heard  the  cha- 
racteristic sentiments,  and  the  artificial  notions  which 
were  the  strength  of  this  institution,  advanced  as  expli- 
citly by  early,  as  by  later  writers;  and  now  we  find  the 
broad  principle  formally  assumed,  and  asserted,  which 
might  not  merely  underprop  the  discipline  of  celibacy, 
lut  sustain  all  other  additions  to  the  Christianity  of  the 
scriptures,  and  in  fact  give  solidity  to  whatever  consti- 
tutes the  mass  of  abominations  summarily  called,  popery. 

Is  then  Tertullian's  doctrine — his  fundamental  church 
axiom,  a  good  one  ?  Is  it  true,  or  not,  that  Christianity, 
as  revealed  and  verbally  expressed  in  the  canonical 
writings,  is  a  mere  sketch,  or  rough  draft,  of  that  mature 
truth,  which,  by  little  and  little,  was  to  be  granted  to 
^le  church,  through  the  medium  of  its  doctors,  and  un- 
der the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit?  If  so,  then  is 
there  any  where  else  we  can  look  for  the  progressive 
expansion  of  this  ever-growing  truth,  but  to  the  church 
of  Rome;  or,  if  we  like  it  better,  the  Greek  church? 
Where  is  the  tree  to  be  found,  laden  with  its  fruit,  but 
where  the  plant  was  set?  At  this  rate,  protestantism, 
under  whatever  pretext,  is  nothing  better  than  a  multifa- 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  145 

rious  blaspliemy,  and  a  high  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost: 
and  what  have  its  martyrs  been,  but  the  justly  punished 
enemies  of  God  and  the  church? 

If  TertuUian's  principle  of  a  slow  development  of 
truth  be  sound,  then  every  separate  item  of  the  Romish 
superstitions  and  encroachments,  was  really  a  new  fa- 
vour»  granted  to  the  church  from  above; — or  if  not,  or 
if  there  are  any  exceptions,  who  shall  come  in,  and 
name  these  exceptions,  or  enable  us  to  distinguish  be- 
tween the  genuine,  and  the  spurious  developments  of  the 
great  scheme?  At  this  rate,  the  enormities  of  the  mo- 
nastic institution,  and  the  compulsory  celibacy  of  the 
clergy,  the  superstition  of  relics,  the  invocation  of  saints, 
the  communion  in  one  kind,  the  mass  in  Latin,  the  uni- 
versal vicarship  of  the  bishop  of  Rome,  the  secular 
powers  wielded  by  the  church,  and — the  denial  of  the 
scriptures  to  the  laity,  are  all  so  many  boons,  graciously 
sent  down  from  on  high,  as  parts  and  parcels  of  that 
adult  symmetry  which  is  at  length  to  be  the  glory  of  the 
mature  church.  But  who  shall  say  why,  if  this  princi- 
ple be  assumed,  we  should  make  a  stand  at  tridentine 
Romanism  ?  Has  the  Spirit  withdrawn  from  the  church; 
has  the  promise  of  the  Lord  been  revoked;  are  the  fa- 
vours of  heaven  exhausted;  are  there  yet  no  truths  in 
reserve;  is  the  treasury  of  divine  elements  so  soon 
emptied  ? — on  the  contrary,  we  ought  to  be  looking 
every  day  for  some  farther  apocalypse,  some  new  and 
heaven-born  institute,  or  practice:  nay,  it  is  only  pious 
to  believe,  that  the  progressive  manifestation  shall  go  on, 
until  the  vast  discrepancy  between  tlie  ripened  Chris- 
tianity of  a  remote  age,  and  its  rude  commencement, 
as  consigned  to  the  canonical  writings,  shall  utterly  dis- 
miss these  as  obsolete  and  void.  It  is  thus,  in  fact,  that. 
13^ 


146        A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

the  church,  after  she  had  made  so  much  progress  in  ad- 
vance of  her  first  position,  as  to  render  the  contrast  be- 
tween herself  and  scriptural  Christianity  a  matter  of  scan- 
tlal  to  the  simple,  wisely  (and  indeed  of  necessity)  inter- 
dicted the  perusal  of  the  Bible;  nor  can  she  be  accused,  in 
this  instance,  and  if  her  principle  be  good,  of  having 
deprived  the  people  of  any  real  or  important  benefit;  for 
why  should  we  wish  to  revert  from  a  more  perfect,  to  a 
less  perfect  exhibition  of  the  divine  mind?  To  look  to 
the  scriptures,  instead  of  looking  to  the  church  of  our  own 
times,  is  as  if  those  under  the  theocratic  dispensation, 
had,  in  contempt  of  their  prerogatives,  relapsed  to  natu- 
ral religion;  or  as  if  the  first  Christians  had  sought  to 
reinstate  Judaism. 

Yen  must  not  think  that,  in  all  this,  I  either  exagge- 
rate the  consequences  of  the  doctrine  in  question,  or  be* 
stow  upon  it  more  regard  than  it  deserves.  Nothing 
can  be  more  clear  or  direct  than  is  the  inference,  as  it 
flows  from  the  premises,  nor  do  I  know  that  the  essence 
of  the  argument  witli  which  at  the  present  moment  we  are 
concerned,  can  be  much  less  exceptionably  stated  than  it 
is  by  TertuUian,  in  the  passage  I  have  quoted.  Was 
Christianity  complete  and  mature  in  the  hands  of  the 
apostles,  or  was  it  then  in  the  bud  merely,  waiting  to  be 
expanded  and  ripened  by  the  suns  and  showers  of  many 
centuries?  If  we  assume  the  former  position,  and  deny 
altogether  Tertullian's  doctrine,  then  we  must  not  only 
reject  popery  and  its  usurpations,  but  the  immemorial 
errors  also  of  ancient  Christianity. 

I  do  not  forget  that,  in  reference  to  the  above-cited 
principle,  it  would  be  easy  to  refute  Tertiillian — out  of 
Tertullian,  (a  mode  of  treatment  to  which  every  intem- 
perate and  wayward  writer  is  open)  for  when  he  under- 
takes to  deal  with  heretics,  and  feels  that  he  must  have 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  147 

ground  to  stand  upon  that  will  afford  him  support  in 
overturning  their  foolish  novelties,  he  ^'•prescribes'''' 
them  with  stringent  references  to  the  unchanging  autho- 
rity of  scripture,  as  sustained  by  the  continuous  and 
concurrent  testimony  of  the  apostolic  churches.  But 
then,  mark  the  predicament  in  which  we  stand. — If  we 
are  compelled  to  make  a  choice  between  the  two  Ter- 
tullians,  considered  as  the  champions  of  the  notions  and 
practices  of  the  churcli  at  tiiat  time,  it  must  be  the  writer 
of  the  passage  above  cited,  not  the  more  sound  divine 
whom  we  find  trampling  upon  the  crew  of  heretics,  that 
Avill  serve  our  purpose.  The  profestant  Tertullian  may 
indeed  be  the  most  to  our  taste  of  the  two;  but  then  he 
condemns,  by  a  clear  implication,  all  the  most  favourite 
practices  of  that  early  age.  It  is,  therefore,  the  tridcn- 
tine  Tertullian  of  whose  rhetoric  we  must  avail  ourselves, 
for  the  defence  of  those  articles  of  ancient  Christianity 
which  some  are  now  fondly  admiring,  and  would  fain 
restore. 

It  is  thus  too  with  Vincent  of  Lerins,  so  often  quoted  of 
late.  None  better  than  he,  bars  the  church  door  against 
heretics,  or  the  broachers  of  new  doctrines;  but  then, 
unfortunately,  as  in  some  cases,  the  bar  of  a  door  is 
found  to  be  the  most  potent  instrument  one  can  lay 
hands  upon,  to  employ  as  a  croiv,  or  lever,  for  breaking  it 
open,  so  are  tlie  densely  compacted  paragraphs  of  the 
cogent  Vincent,  convertible,  in  the  readiest  manner,  to 
the  purpose  of  demolishing,  not  merely  Romanism,  but 
the  superstitious  Christianity  of  the  eastern,  and  of  the 
western  churches,  such  as  it  was  in  the  writer's  times. 
Give  us  but  that  excellent  tract,  the  Commonitorium, 
and  we  might  defy,  single-handed,  all  the  Bellarmines 
of  the  papacy,  and  all  the  fathers;  and,  with  due 
modesty   be  it  spoken,  the  entire  baud  of  the  Oxford 


148  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

Tract  writers.     But  of  this  more  perhaps  in  another 
place. 

The  often-repeated  opinions  to  which  my  first  propo- 
sition stands  opposed,  would,  if  correct,  justify  the  ex- 
pectation that,  in  taking  so  long  a  period  as  four  or  five 
hundred  years,  any  where  out  of  the  sixteen  hundred  pre- 
ceding the  reformation,  one  should  be  able,  without  any 
ambiguity,  to  trace  the  progress  of  religious  corruption, 
and  that  it  would  be  easy  to  say — such  and  such  false 
notions,  or  extravagant  sentiments,  are  characteristic  of 
the  later  time,  from  which  errors  the  earlier  age  is  al- 
together exempt:  but  in  reference  to  the  subject  now 
before  us  (and  I  think,  not  to  this  alone)  such  an  expec- 
tation is  by  no  means  borne  out  by  the  evidence.  I 
must  profess  to  be  entirely  unable  to  draw  any  line  of 
very  obvious  distinction,  marking  the  advances  of  folly, 
error,  or  corruption,  in  this  particular,  during  the  lapse 
of  fourteen  centuries.  Some  writers,  it  is  true,  such  as 
Gregory  the  Great,  or  Palladius,  are  much  more  extra- 
vagant than  some  others,  on  this  point;  but  then  this  dif- 
ference attaches  to  tiie  individual,  and  has  no  reference 
whatever  to  the  place  he  occupies,  chronologically,  in 
the  series. 

To  render  our  notions,  in  this  instance,  as  definite  as 
possible,  I  would  look  at  the  subject  in  different  lights, 
and,  in  doing  so,  I  find  only  one  respect  in  which  llie 
influence  of  time  is  clearly  to  be  traced,  in  rendering  the 
doctrine  and  practice  of  religious  celibacy  of  a  later  age 
unlike  what  it  had  been  at  an  earlier  time;  and  this, 
which  1  have  already  alluded  to,  relates  to  those  purely 
ecclesiastical  enactments,  and  points  of  discipline,  which, 
from  time  to  time,  were  found  to  be  indispensable,  as 
corrective  of  the  abuses  whereto  the  entire  system  was 
obnoxious.     These  changes,  or  amendments,  it  would 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  149 

serve  no  purpose  whatever,  as  related  to  onr  present  ar- 
gument, to  specify.  Let  it  be  remembered,  however, 
that,  although  tiiey  may  have  implied  some  stretches  of 
tyranny,  they  are  not,  generally,  of  the  nature  of  pro- 
gressive corruptions. 

In  every  other  respect,  time  made  nothing  essentially 
worse  than  it  had  been  almost  from  the  first.  To  come 
to  instances  : — if  we  are  thinking  of  those  abject  and 
frivolous  observances  that  have  attached  to  the  monastic 
modes  of  life,  and  to  the  devotional  routine  of  the  mo- 
nastery, I  would  request  any  who  may  be  inclined  to 
demur  at  my  representations,  to  compare  whatever  de- 
scriptions he  may  choose  to  select  of  the  mummeries  of 
the  monasticism  of  the  twelfth  century,  with  the  Insti- 
tutes of  Cassian,  which  contain  the  principles  and  the 
minute  details  of  the  monastic  institution,  as  it  had  al- 
ready been  digested,  and  then  long  practised,  in  the 
east,  and  the  west,  so  early  as  the  fourth  century.  There 
may  be  variations,  distinguishing  the  two  schemes  of 
life  ;  but  will  a  reasonable  man  afTirm  that  there  is  any 
thing  to  choose  or  to  prefer  in  the  more  ancient  model? 
There  is  no  degradation  of  the  intellect,  no  bondage  of 
the  moral  sentiments,  no  fatal  substitution  of  forms  for 
realities;  there  is  no  ineffable  drivelling  belonging  to  the 
middle  age  monkery,  that  may  not  be  matched,  to  the 
full,  in  the  monkery  of  the  bright  times  of  Chrysostom, 
Ambrose,  and  Augustine.  I  here  put  the  question  aloud, 
to  any  opponent — "  What  is  it  that  you  precisely  mean 
by  the  corruptions  of  popery,  in  respect  to  the  monastic 
system?"  or,  in  other  words,  "  can  you  make  it  appear, 
to  the  satisfaction  of  thinking  men,  that  this  same  sys- 
tem had  become  more  frivolous,  and  therefore,  in  a  re- 
ligious sense,  more  pernicious,  in  the  twelfth  century, 
than  it  was  at  the  opening  of  the  fourth?"    I  am  templed 


150  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

here  to  cite  the  very  words  of  Cassian,  who,  in  stickling, 
with  great  seriousness,  for  some  inanity  of  the  monkish 
daily  ritual,  says,  .  .  .  qui  modus  antiquitus  constitutus, 
idcirco  per  tot  saecula  penes  cuncta  monasteria  intemera- 
tus  nunc  usque  perdurat;  quid  non  humana  adinventione 
statutus  a  senioribus  affirmatur,  sed  calitus  angeli  ma- 
gisterio  patribus  fuisse  delatus.  These  observances  then 
could  have  been  no  novelties. 

But  again  ;  if  we  tliink  of  those  enormous  follies  and 
impious  whims,  wliich,  connected  as  they  always  were 
with  the  monastic  life,  imposed  a  mask,  sometimes  of 
idiotcy,  and  sometimes  of  madness,  upon  the  bright  face 
of  Christianity,  I  ask  whether  this  sort  of  corruption 
was  more  extreme  in  a  later  age,  than  it  had  been  in  an 
earlier;  or,  if  any  think  so,  I  would  send  them  no  far- 
ther than  to  the  Lausaic  history  of  the  pious  and  really 
respectable  Palladius,  a  bishop,  a  man  of  some  learning, 
and  tlie  intimate  friend  of  the  illustrious  Chrysostom, 
and  the  companion  of  his  exile.  1  am  not  about  to  cite 
any  samples  of  the  utter  nonsense  and  the  spiritual  ri- 
baldry of  this  book.  Let  those  refer  to  it,  and  satisfy 
themselves,  who  are  still  clinging  to  the  fond  idea  of  a 
golden  age  of  Christianity.  'J'iie  legends,  collected  by 
Palladius,  relate,  for  the  most  part,  to  an  earlier  age  than 
his  own;  and  romances  of  like  quality  are  to  be  found 
in  Eusebius,  Sozomen,  and  Theodoret,  as  well  as  Ma- 
carius,  and  as  belonging  to  the  times  of  the  heathen  per- 
secutions. No  one,  I  am  sure,  who  really  knows  what 
he  is  talking  about,  will  dare,  with  such  documents  be- 
fore him,  to  play  the  Quixote,  and  break  a  lance  in  de- 
fence of  the  honour  of  tlie  ancient  monkery. 

Or,  if  we  were  to  make  inquiry  concerning  the  half- 
confessed,  and  yet  sufficiently  attested  serious  evils  and 
Jiorrors  that  have  disgraced  the  institute  of  religious  ce- 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  15( 

libacy,  I  think  that  those  who  have  been  used  to  look 
into  the  fathers  will  admit  there  to  be  reason  enough  for 
believing  that  the  natural  and  inevitable  consequences  of 
this  institute,  when  once  it  came  to  include  promiscuous 
masses  of  the  religious  body,  developed  themselves  fully 
from  the  very  first.  On  this  point,  I  will  neither  make 
references,  nor  put  the  clue  into  any  one's  hand;  but 
leave  my  broad  assertion  to  be  contradicted  by  those 
who  may  think  it  safe  and  discreet  to  dare  me  to  the 
proof.  One  hint  only  I  will  drop:  and  must  do  so  in  an- 
ticipation of  what  it  would  give  me  no  surprise  (what- 
ever disgust)  to  witness:  I  mean  a  gentle,  sentimental, 
plausible  endeavour,  to  feel  the  religious  pulse,  in  refe- 
rence to  the  "celestial  and  apostolic"  practice  of  "  vow- 
ing virginity  to  the  Lord,"  In  any  such  case  there  would 
be  no  room  for  compromise,  or  half  measures;  but  evi- 
dence must  be  instantly  spread  out  before  all  eyes,  show- 
ing what  have,  in  every  age,  and  from  the  first,  been  the 
deplorable  consequences  of  this  pernicious  custom.  Some 
may  smile  at  the  mere  supposition  that  any  such  endea- 
vour should  be  made — out  of  the  pale  of  the  Romish 
communion.  For  my  own  part  (unless  I  may  have  had 
the  honour  of  suggesting  a  little  caution  to  certain  par- 
ties) it  is  nothing  but  what  I  think  we  are  to  look  for,  as 
the  next  move  in  the  game. 

There  yet  remains,  however,  one  other  point  of  view, 
whence  the  same  subject  may  be  regarded,  and  that  is 
the  bearing  of  the  institute  of  celibacy  upon  the  religious 
principle,  which  was  appealed  to  for  giving  it  support: 
now,  without  anticipating  what  will  more  properly  find 
a  place,  a  little  way  on,  I  will  state  the  fact,  that,  at  a 
very  early  time,  a  false  maxim  of  spiritual  computation 
had  become  so  inveterate,  as  that  the  most  sedate  and 
judicious  divines,  without  hesitation,  employ  it,  in  the 


152        A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

estimates  they  form  of  the  comparative  excellence  of 
different  religious  conditions.  That  is  to  say,  a  rule  of 
spiritual  eminence  is  appealed  to,  which  discards,  or 
overlooks  all  reference  to  what  is  truly  spiritual,  or,  in 
any  genuine  sense,  moral;  and  puts  in  its  room  what  is 
formal,  visible,  or  ecclesiastical.  I  will  refer,  in  this 
instance,  to  the  sober-minded  Isidore  of  Pellusium,  also 
a  bishop,  and  the  personal  friend  of  Chrysostom,  and 
whose  expositions  of  scripture  are  frequently  such  as  to 
deserve  respectful  attention.  We  have  seen  in  what  way 
Tertullian,  Cyprian,  and,  with  not  more  absurdity,  St. 
Bernard,  pervert  the  plain  sense  of  scripture,  for  the 
purpose  of  hitching  the  virgins  of  Christ  upon  the  lofti- 
est pinnacle  of  the  ecclesiastical  structure.  Now  for  Isi- 
dore, who,  to  do  him  justice,  inserts  a  frequent  ATntyt,, 
when  there  appears  to  be  a  danger  lest,  in  his  recom- 
mendation of  celibacy,  matrimony  should  be  despoiled 
of  its  due  honours. 

"  The  warfare  of  virginity  is  indeed  great,  glorious^ 
and  divine;  yet  does  it,  (vviien  successfully  waged,)  di- 
minish the  arduousness  of  our  conflict  with  other  of  our 
spiritual  adversaries  ....  as  high  as  the  heaven  is  above 
the  earth,  and  as  far  as  the  soul  excels  the  body,  so  does 
the  state  of  virginity  surpass  the  state  of  matrimony  .... 
Wherefore  let  the  contemners  of  virginity  cease  their 
prating,  and  henceforward  acknowledge,  dutifully,  its 
princess-like  dignity,  and  submit  themselves  to  its  be- 
hests; placing  themselves  under  its  protection,  and  avail- 
ing themselves  of  its  mediatorial  (or  intercessory)  office. 
And  (if  I  may  employ  celestial  emblems)  I  must  com- 
pare those  who  embrace  the  virgin  state,  to  the  sun; 
while  those  who  only  observe  continence,  are  to  be 
likened  to  the  moon;  and  those  living  in  honourable  wed- 
lock, to  the  stars;  and  so,  as  the  divine  Paul  reckons  up 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  153 

the  degrees  of  digriily,  and  says — there  is  one  glory  of 
the  sun,  and  another  glory  of  the  moon,  and  another 
glory  of  the  stars  !" 

Now,  it  is  no  matter  to  us,  whether  Isidore  is  right  or 
wrong  in  the  relative  position  which  he  assigns  to  the 
three  estates;  but  it  is  of  real  importance,  and  important 
to  our  present  argument,  to  observe  the  fact  that,  so  ut- 
terly fallacious  and  fatally  erroneous  a  principle  of  reli- 
gious feeling  had,  at  this  time,  come  to  be  universally 
received,  and  admitted,  by  even  tlie  most  judicious  di- 
vines; and  that,  in  accordance  with  this  principle,  the 
piety  and  purity  of  the  heart  had  come  to  be  subordi- 
nated to  the  visible  and  ecclesiastical  condition,  and  that 
continence  was  regarded  as  mere  moonshine,  when 
placed  in  the  same  heavens  with  the  solar  effulgence  of 
the  virginity  of  the  nun.  Mean  time,  whatever  might  be 
the  personal  godliness,  or  the  purity,  or  the  solid  virtues 
of  the  Christian  matron,  all  were,  at  the  best,  but  the 
faint  twinkling  of  a  star!  Now,  as  it  seems  to  me,  all 
this  is  not  mere  rodomontade,  which  one  may  smile  at, 
and  let  pass,  but  it  is  substantially  false  doctrine,  and  of 
most  putrid  quality,  in  regard  to  piety  and  morals:  it  is 
the  indication  of  an  ulcer — a  bad  condition  of  the  vitals 
of  the  Christian  system,  and  a  condition  which  had  then 
become  inveterate.  Isidore's  theology  is  not  popery; 
nor  was  it  his  own  scheme  of  doctrine;  but  the  inheri- 
tance which  he  iiad  come  into:  it  was  the  boasted  apos- 
tolic catholicity,  which  all  his  contemporaries  had  as- 
sented to,  and  which  was  scrupulously  watched  over, 
and  handed  down,  to  the  next  age.  If  Gregory  I.  may 
fairly  be  regarded  as  the  father  of  popery,  using  the  term 
in  its  proper  sense,  I  am  sure  he  does  not,  on  the  point 
now  before  us,  advance  any  thing  which  may  not  find 
14 


154  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

its  parallel  on  the  pages  of  the  best  writers  of  the  fourth 
century:  but  the  proof  of  this  assertion  cannot  be  ne- 
cessary to  ray  immediate  argument. 

I  shall  then  on  the  whole  assume  as  not  to  be  denied, 
the  general  affirmation  imbodied  in  my  first  proposition. 
That  the  lapse  of  many  centuries  exhibits  no  essential 
change,  or  progression,  in  reference  to  the  principles, 
the  practices,  or  the  abuses  of  religious  celibacy. 


THE  SECOND  PROPOSITION. 

I  HAVE  undertaken  to  adduce  proof  of  the  assertion, 
not  only  that  the  doctrine  of  the  merit  of  celibac}-,  and 
the  consequent  practices,  are  found  in  a  mature  state  at 
an  early  age;  but  also — 

That,  at  the  earliest  period  at  which  we  find  this  doc- 
trine and  these  practices  distinctly  mentioned,  they  are 
referred  to  in  sucli  a  manner  as  to  make  it  certain  that 
they  were,  at  that  time,  no  novelties,  or  recent  innova- 
tions. 

Now  I  am  aware  that  a  statement  such  as  tliis,  if  it 
shall  appear  to  be  borne  out  by  evidence,  will  excite 
alarm  in  some  minds;  The  dissipation  of  erroneous  im- 
pressions, is  always  a  critical  and  somewhat  perilous 
operation;  nevertheless  dangers  much  more  to  be  feared, 
are  incurred  by  a  refusal  to  admit  the  full  and  simple 
truth.  Yet  the  alarm  that  may  be  felt  in  this  instance, 
at  the  first,  may  soon  be  removed;  for  allhough  it  were 
to  appear  that  certain  capital  errors  of  feeling,  and  prac- 


OF  THE  ANXIENT  CHURCH.  155 

lice,  had  seized  the  church  universal,  at  the  very  mo- 
ment when  the  personal  influence  of  the  apostles  was 
withdrawn,  yet  such  an  admission  will  shake  no  princi- 
ple really  important  to  our  faith  or  comfort.  In  fact,  too 
many  have  been  attaching  their  faith  and  comfort  to  a 
supposition,  concerning  pristine  Christianity,  which  is 
totally  illasory,  and  such  as  can  bear  no  examination — 
a  supposition  which  must  long  ago  have  been  dispelled 
from  all  well-informed  minds,  by  the  influence  of  rational 
modes  of  dealing  with  historical  materials,  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  conservative  accident,  that  the  materials, 
which  belong  to  this  particular  department  of  history, 
have  lain  imbedded  in  repulsive  folios  of  Latin  and  Greek, 
to  which  very  few,  and  those  not  the  most  independent, 
or  energetic  in  their  habits  of  mind,  have  had  access. 
Certain  utterly  unfounded  generalities,  very  delightful 
had  they  possessed  the  recommendation  of  truth,  have 
been  a  thousand  times  repeated,  and  seldom  scrutinized. 

But  the  times  of  this  ignorance  is  now  passing  away: 
and  I  think  the  zeal  of  the  Oxford  writers  will  have  the 
efl'ect,  as  an  indirect  means,  of  disabusing  eff'ectively, 
and  for  ever,  the  religious  mind,  in  this  country,  and 
perhaps  throughout  Europe,  of  the  inveterate  illusions 
that  have  so  long  hung  over  the  fields  of  Christian  anti- 
quity. It  will  be  utterly  impossible,  much  longer,  to 
make  those  things  believed  which  we  have  been  taught 
to  consider  as  unquestionable;  and  the  result  must  be, 
(how  desirable  a  result)  the  compelling  the  Christian 
church,  henceforward,  to  rest  its  faith  and  practice  on  the 
only  solid  foundation. 

The  actual  impression,  moral  and  spiritual,  made 
upon  the  Jewish  and  pagan  world  by  the  preaching  of 
the  apostles  themselves,  and  of  their  personal  colleagues, 
has,  I  fear,  been  somewhat  overrated  by  the  generality 


156  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

of  Christians ;  and  yet,  if  it  be  so,  and  if  we  are  called 
upon  to  surrender  a  portion  of  our  too  hastily  assumed 
belief,  on  this  subject,  we  directly  gain  a  proportionate 
enhancement  of  the  collateral  argument  which  proves  the 
divine  origin  of  Christianity,  from  the  fact  of  its  spread, 
and  its  eventual  triumph,  overall  opposition;  for  the 
less  it  was,  morally  and  spiritually,  in  its  commence- 
ment, the  stronger  is  the  inference  to  be  derived  from  its 
steady  advances. 

And  then,  as  to  the  period  immediately  following  the 
death  of  the  apostles,  and  of  the  men  whom  they  per- 
sonally appointed  to  govern  the  churches,  we  have  too 
easily,  and  without  any  sufficient  evidence,  assumed  the 
belief  that  a  brightness  and  purity  belonged  to  it,  only  a 
shade  or  two  less  than  what  we  have  attributed  to  the 
apostolic  limes.  This  belief,  is,  in  fact,  merely  the  cor- 
relative of  the  common  protestant  notion  concerning  the 
progressive  corruptions  of  popery,  it  being  a  natural 
supposition  that  the  higher  we  ascend  toward  the  apos- 
tolic age,  so  much  the  more  truth,  simplicity,  purity, 
must  there  have  been  in  the  church.  Thus  it  is  that  we 
have  allowed  ourselves  to  theorize,  when  what  we  should 
have  done,  was  simply  to  examine  our  documents. 

The  opinion  that  has  forced  itself  upon  my  own  mind, 
is  to  this  effect,  that  the  period  dating  its  commencement 
from  the  death  of  the  last  of  the  apostles,  or  apostolic 
men,  was,  altogether,  as  little  deserving  to  be  selected 
and  proposed  as  a  pattern,  as  any  one  of  the  first  five 
of  church  history; — it  had  indeed  its  single  points  of  ex- 
cellence, and  of  a  high  order,  but  by  no  means  shone 
in  those  consistent  and  exemplary  qualiiies  which  should 
entitle  it  to  the  honour  of  being  considered  as  a  model 
to  after  ages.  We  need  therefore  neither  feel  surprise 
nor  alarm,  when  we  find,  in  particular  instances,  that 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  15T 

the  grossest  errors  of  theory  and  practice,  are  to  be  traced 
to  their  origin  in  the  first  century.  In  such  instances, 
for  my  own  part,  I  can  wonder  at  nothing  but  the  infa- 
tuation of  those  who,  fully  informed  as  they  must  be  of 
the  actual  facts,  and  benefited  moreover  by  modern 
modes  of  thinking,  can  nevertheless  so  prostrate  their 
understandings  before  the  phantom — venerable  antiquity, 
as  to  be  inflamed  with  the  desire  of  inducing  the  Chris- 
tian world  to  imitate  what  really  asks  for  apology  and 
extenuation.  Any  such  endeavour  must,  however,  ine- 
vitably fail ;  nor  can  it  be  for  more  than  a  moment,  after 
once  the  subject  has  attracted  general  attention,  that  an 
illusion,  so  fantastic,  can  hold  the  minds  of  any  except 
a  very  few,  who  are  constitutionally  disposed  to  admit 
it.  When  the  bubble  bursts,  let  the  promoters  of  ancient 
principles  look  to  it,  that  they  are  provided  with  some 
other  means  of  keeping  their  doctrines  in  credit;  and  I 
am  far  from  assuming  that  the  general  doctrines  of  the 
Oxford  writers  will  disappear  along  with  the  ill-founded 
prejudice  they  have  laboured  to  support  in  favour  of 
ancient  Christianity. 

The  actual  origination  of  the  Christian  doctrine  and 
practice  concerning  religious  celibacy  may,  I  think,  be 
very  satisfactorily  laid  open;  but  it  would  carry  us  too 
far  from  our  more  immediate  object  to  pursue  this  sub- 
ject; all  that  I  am  now  concerned  with  is  the  fact,  that 
;in  error  which,  as  I  shall  be  able  to  show,  affected  every 
element  of  the  theological  and  ecclesiastical  system,  had 
acquired  the  stability  which  time  only  can  confer,  at  the 
earliest  period  when  the  references  to  it  are  explicit  and 
-.imple. 

I  am  unwilling  to  tire  you  with  TertuUian,  or  other- 
wise might  properly  bring  him  forward  again,  as  a  wil- 
14* 


158  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  COXDITION 

ness,  under  this  second  head  of  my  argument.  Suffice 
it  then  to  remind  you,  that,  how  extravagant  soever  may 
have  been  the  opinions  vvhicli  lie  adopted,  concerning" 
the  unlawfuhiess  of  second  marriages,  and  their  ex- 
treme impropriety  in  the  case  of  the  clergy,  the  princi- 
ples he  assumes,  and  on  which  he  reasons,  as  admitted 
on  all  hands,  imply  nothing  less  than  that,  within  little 
more  than  one  hundred  years  after  the  death  of  St.  John, 
an  obloquy  had  come  to  be  attached,  in  the  minds  of 
Christians  generally,  to  the  matrimonial  connexion,  as  if 
it  involved  a  degree  of  impurity,  and  rendered  a  man 
less  fit  to  officiate  as  a  priest,  or,  as  tlie  jiotion  was,  as 
a  mediator  between  God,  and  the  herd  of  Christians. 
It  is  also  certain  that,  as  a  consequence  of  these  prevail- 
ing notions,  a  voluntary  abjuratioji  of  the  sexual  relation- 
ship had  come  to  be  considered  as  highly  meritorious — 
next  to  martyrdom;  and  farther,  that,  in  imitation  of  the 
analogous  pagan  institutes,  an  order  of  dedicated  virgins 
had  been  established,  and  that  these  constituted  a  dis- 
tinct band,  or  choir,  a  grex  segregatus,  in  the  ciiurch; — 
to  what  good  purpose  let  Cyprian  say. 

Diganius  tinguis?  Digamus  oflers?  asks  the  indignant 
Terlullian;  "shall  one  who  has  contracted  a  second  mar- 
riage baptize;  or  shall  such  a  one  make  the  eucharistic 
oblation?"  Now  let  us  coolly  consider  how  much  is  in- 
volved, as  found  in  a  writer  of  so  early  an  age,  in  a 
question  such  as  this: — for  it  plainly  implies  the  concur- 
rence of  the  Christian  community  in  certain  feelings — 
such  as  that  of  a  false  sensitiveness,  in  regard  to  exterior 
purity,  and  a  superstitious  feeling  toward  the  sacraments, 
as  if  they  demanded  in  the  administrator,  certain  per- 
sonal qualities,  or  exemptions,  which  might  be  dispensed 
with  in  those  who  conducted  the  ordinary  offices  of  wor- 
ship ;   and  a  belief  too  that  degrees  of  spiritual  merit, 


OF  THE  AXCIENT  CHURCH.  159 

were  attached  to  degrees  of  separation  from  the  ordinary 
relationships  of  life.  From  such  notions,  generally  pre- 
vailing, nothing  could  in  the  end  result  but  what  we  tind 
actually  to  have  resulted,  namely — the  monastic  institute 
— the  enforced  celibacy  of  the  clergy,  and  the  supersti- 
tion of  the  sacraments.  But  I  now  fix  upon  the  mere 
fact,  that  such  notions  had  already  gained  the  authentic 
cation  of  time,  at  the  close  of  the  second  century. 

Looking  only  to  the  evidence  furnished  by  Tertullian, 
we  might  be  led  to  believe  that  the  coelibate  institution 
had  its  origin  in  the  liighly  culpable  ambition  of  the 
leaders  of  the  church,  to  secure  for  it  the  glory  of  pos- 
sessing whatever,  in  the  heathen  system  around  them, 
appeared  at  once  heroic,  and  capable  of  amalgamation 
with  Christianity.  Satan,  it  was  alleged,  had  too  l^ng 
monopolized  certain  good  things,  whicli  it  was  now  high 
time  to  snatch  from  his  grasp:  and  among  these,  the 
principal  was  the  sacerdotal  celibacy,  enjoined  upon  the 
ministers  of  some  divinities,  and  the  consecration  of  the 
vestal  virgins.  Unhap{)ily,  this  same  ambition,  abso- 
lutely impious  as  it  was,  took  effect  upon,  and  perverted, 
every  other  element  of  visible  Ciiristianity. 

But  this  was  not  all;  and  if  we  extend  our  researches 
a  little  farther,  and  higher,  we  shall  find  the  indications 
of  the,  perhaps,  blameless  existence  of  this  practice, 
reaching  up  to  the  actual  times  of  the  apostles.  What 
then?  will  it  lollow  that,  because  certain  individuals,  who, 
from  temperament,  came  within  the  meaning  of  our  Lord's 
recommendation  (Matt.  xix.  12)  devoted  themselves  tea 
single  life,  in  order  to  be  free  from  all  entanglements  that 
mijjrht  withdraw  them  from  evangelic  and  charitable  la- 
hours — does  it  follow  that,  tiierefore,  a  celestial  pre-emi- 
nence should  have  been  arrogated  by,  or  for  them,  or 
that  shoals  of  young  persons,  without  regard  had  to  their 


160  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

individual  temperament,  should  have  heen  urged,  in  mo- 
ments of  factitious  excitement,  to  bind  themselves  by  a 
rash  vow?  Here  was  the  false  step  of  the  early  church; 
a  step  which  would  never  have  been  taken,  unless,  al- 
ready, the  true  purport  of  the  gospel  had  been  misunder- 
stood, and  the  form  of  godliness  liad  been  put  in  the 
place  of  the  power  and  substance  of  it. 

The  good  Justin  (second  apology)  in  recommending 
to  the  imperial  philosopher  and  persecutor,  the  principles 
and  practices  of  his  Christian  brethren,  makes  it  his 
boast  that  he  could  point  to  many,  men  as  well  as  wo- 
men, who  having  followed  the  Christian  institute  from 

their  earliest  years,  liad  remained,  to  an  advanced  ao-e 

sixty  or  seventy  years,  incorrupt— «<j>9,ps< /;«^3,ci;^/,  un- 
married, or  inviolate.  These  persons,  then,  must  have  so 
devoted  themselves  very  soon  after  the  martyrdom  of 
Paul  and  Peter;  and  the  practice  having  rapidly  spread 
itself  throughout  the  church,  in  all  countries,  and  being 
at  once  promoted  and  exaggerated  by  the  effect  of  perse- 
cution, soon  brought  it,  that  is  to  say,  within  the  com- 
pass of  another  lliirty  or  forty  years,  to  its  mature  stale, 
such,  in  fact,  as  we  lind  it  in  the  times  of  Terlullian. 
In  liis  time,  as  we  have  seen,  the  prevailing  practice  had 
generated  notions  palpably  contradictory  to  the  apostolic 
precepts.  Paul  had  assumed  that,  ordinarily,  both  bishops 
and  deacons  were  to  be  married  men;  and  he  clearly 
implies  that,  in  the  exemplary  discharge  of  the  domestic 
duties,  they  would  find  the  best  opportunities  for  adorn- 
ing their  ministerial  function.  A  bishop's  wife,  was,  in 
Paul's  idea,  a  main  article  in  a  bishop's  qualification  for 
ruling  the  church  of  Gcul;  and  a  deacon's  children  were 
to  furnish,  to  a  deacon,  the  occasions  for  exhibiting 
the  influence  of  Christian  principles.  Such  was  apos- 
tolic Christianity— a  system  ol"  real,  not  t>f  Hciiiious 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH. 


161 


purity;  a  system  of  virtue  and  piety,  adapted  to  the  pur- 
pose of  elevating  and  blessing  man's  actual  condition^ 
in  the  present  state.  Did  there  attach  to  the  apostle's 
idea  of  the  matrimonial  connexion  any,  even  the  re- 
motest idea,  of  impurity,  or  of  spiritual  degradation? 
Boldly  we  say  not  the  faintest  supposition  of  moral  or 
religious  contamination  entered  his  mind,  in  relation  to 
this  subject.  The  apostles  were  intent  upon  the  esta- 
blishment, not  of  celibacy,  but  of  virtue! 

Such,  we  say,  was  apostolic  Christianity;  but  not 
such  was  ancient  Christianity,  even  that  of  the  age 
immediately  following  the  death  of  the  apostles.  The 
dilTerence  does  not  reach  to  the  mere  amount  of  a  di- 
versity of  usage,  or  of  a  shade  of  feeling;  but  it  involves 
nothing  less  than  the  substitution  of  one  principle  of 
virtue  and  piety  for  another.  The  scheme  of  religious 
sentiments  had  shifted  its  foundations;  a  different  stand- 
ard of  good  and  evil  had  come  to  be  appealed  to;  the 
commandments  of  God  were  displaced,  without  scruple, 
by  the  whims  of  man;  so  that,  within  so  short  a  period 
as  a  hundred  years,  the  very  practices  which  Paul  had 
solemnly  commended  were  impiously  spoken  of  as  de- 
grading, by  Tertullian,  who,  in  this  instance,  only  re- 
flects the  general  feeling  of  his  times. 

At  the  present  moment,  the  Christian  community,  and 
especially  the  clergy  of  the  episcopal  church,  are  called 
upon  to  make  their  choice  between  apostolic  Christi- 
anity and  ANCIENT  Christianity;  and  this  weighty  al- 
ternative'must  soon  merge  all  other  distinctions,  leaving 
only  the  two  parties — the  adherents  of  the  inspired,  and 
those  of  the  uninspired  documents  of  our  religion. 

But  now  I  shall  be  told  that  I  have  inferred  far  too 
much  from  the  language  of  the  intemperate  Tertullian, 
as  to  the  sentiments  of  the  church  at  large  in  his  times. 


16^  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

I  am  provided  against  this  objection,  and  can  rebut  it  by- 
evidence  altogether  of  another  kind. 

When  a  question  arises  concerning  the  existence,  or 
prevalence,  at-  a  particular  era,  of  certain  opinions,  the 
first  mode  of  establishing  the  alleged  fact  is  that  of  citing 
the  language  of  writers  who  explicitly  profess  such  doc- 
trines; but  then  this  direct  evidence  may  be  liable  to  a 
demur,  inasmuch  as  it  may  be  imagined  that  these  writers 
are  advancing  nothing  better  than  their  personal  notions, 
in  behalf  of  which  they  are  assuming  much  more  gene- 
ral acceptance  than  they  were  entitled  to  claim  for  them. 
But  even  this  demur  is  removed,  when  it  can  be  shown, 
as  in  the  instance  of  TertuUian,  that  a  writer  himself 
distinguishes  between  the  common  opinion  and  the  one 
which  he  is  labouring  to  promote. 

But  allowing,  for  a  moment,  the  pertinence  of  the  ob- 
jection, we  then  turn  to  our  second  class  of  proofs,  wjjich 
consists  of  passages  from  writers  who,  impelled  by  a 
reasonable  anxiety  for  what  they  consider  as  endangered 
truths,  vigorously  oppose  the  very  opinions  in  question, 
as  generally  prevalent. 

Thus,  if  it  were  supposed  (which  cannot  be  actually 
granted,  the  facts  being  indubitable)  that  TertuUian,  fiery 
in  temper  and  extravagant  in  sentiments,  had  been  im- 
pelled to  speak  of  the  institute  of  celibacy,  by  anticipa- 
tion, or  as  if  it  had,  in  his  time,  received  an  authentica- 
tion which,  in  truih,  was  not  granted  to  it  until  long 
afterward,  what,  then,  are  we  to  think  when  we  find  a 
writer,  earlier  by  some  years  than  TertuUian,  and  a 
man  of  extensive  learning,  who  had  visited  the  churches 
throughout  the  east  and  the  west,  a  man,  moreover,  of 
singular  good  sense,  and  sobriety  of  judgment,  such  a 
Avriier,  labouring  to  defend  the  divine  institution  of  mat- 
rimony, against  the  swelling  fanaticism  of  all  around 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  163 

him?  What  conclusion  are  we  to  adopt  when  we  hear 
the  accomplished  master  of  the  Alexandrian  school 
calmly  and  modesily  asserting  the  great  principles  of 
nature,  and  of  genuine  piety,  which  he  saw  were  likely 
to  be  swept  away,  as  before  a  deluge  of  factitious  ex- 
citement? The  only  conclusion,  surely,  with  which 
such  facts  will  consist,  is  that  which  my  second  propo- 
sition imbodies. 

After  plunging  in  Tertullian's  turbid  stream,  it  is  really 
a  refreshment  to  walk  at  ease,  and  breathing  a  whole- 
some atmosphere,  in  the  broad  and  pleasant  garden  of 
Clement  of  Alexandria.  Some  dozen  of  the  fathers 
might  be  sifted,  before  we  should  get  together  as  much 
plain  good  sense  as  may  be  found,  within  the  compass 
of  a  few  pages,  in  this  writer. 

We  have  heard  Tertullian's  doctrine  in  regard  to  the 
gradual  development  of  truth,  from  age  to  age,^  the  con- 
sequence of  which,  if  sound,  is,  that  the  Christians  of 
every  age  owe  a  pious  deference,  not  merely  to  the  cur- 
rent orders,  or  the  inventions  of  the  church  authorities 
in  their  own  times,  but  to  all  such  inventions,  of  pre- 
ceding times,  which,  in  fact,  as  proceeding  from  the 
same  source,  are  not  a  whit  less  to  be  regarded  than  the 
dictates  of  written  revelation.  The  writer  now  before 
us  holds  a  very  different  style,  and,  in  various  instances, 
manifests  the  sense  he  had  of  the  dangerous  tendency  of 
the  human  mind  in  matters  of  religion  to  throw  itself 
back,  indolently,  upon  antiquity  and  established  custom. 
On  this  ground,  and  with  a  manly  freedom,  he  expostu- 
lates with  the  adherents  of  the  ancient  polytheism;  and 
again,  in  those  parts  of  his  writings  in  which  he  ad- 
dresses Christians,  he  does  an  honour  to  the  divinely- 
inspired  scriptures,  and  dissuades  from  an  indolent  de- 
ference to  usage  or  mere  opinion,  in  a  manner  which 


r64'  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

distinguishes  him  among  the  church  writers  of  his  own; 
or  of  the  following  ages.     As  a  remedy  for  thai  igno- 
rance which  is  one  of  the  causes  of  vice,  he  knows  of 
nothing  but  "  the  convincing  demonstrations  of  the  testi- 
mony of  the  scripture — the  written  truth;"  and  here, 
by  the  way,  he  incidentally  refers  to  the  defection  or  de- 
linquencies of  "  multitudes  of  the  Lord's  people,"  in  his 
times — a  fact  significant  in  relation  to  our  general  argu- 
ment.    To  some  such  he  addresses  himself,  *'  not,  in- 
deed to  the  contumacious,   who  spurn  all  instruction, 
and  who,  nevertheless,  are  more  to  be  pitied  than  hated 
(a  style  of  speaking  of  heretics  very  unlike  that  em- 
ployed by  most  of  the  fathers)  but  to  those  whose  errors 
might  be  treated  as   remediable.     Well  would  it  have 
been,"  says  he,   "  for  sonie  (certain  heretics)  had  they 
been  able  to  learn  what  was  at  first  delivered  (by  the 
holy  apostles  and  teachers  in  the  inspired  scripiures) 
instead  of  giving  heed  to  human  doctrines.     He,  there- 
fore, and  he  alone,  may  be  accounted  to  live  aright,  who, 
pursuing  his  course  from  year  to  year,  in  converse  with, 
and  conformity  to  the  scriptures,  keeps  to  the  rule  of  the 
apostolic  and  ecclesiastical  purity,  according  to  the  gos- 
pel and  those  established  truths  which,  as  given  by  the 
Lord,  by  the  law,  and  by  the  prophets,  whoever  seeks 
shall  find." 

Our  learned  Alexandrian,  along  with  his  contempo- 
raries, might  err  in  particular  interpretations  of  scrip- 
ture; but,  at  least,  he  pays  homage  to  their  sole  and  un- 
rivalled authority,  in  all  matters  of  faith  and  practice: 
his  errors,  therefore,  whatever  they  may  be,  are  not 
seeds  of  mischief.  How  different  is  the  laniruaore  of 
Tertullian.  In  harmony  with  this  simple  adherence  to 
the  inspired  writings,  and  at  the  impulse  of  his  native 
good  sense,  this  writer  treats  the  subject  of  the  Christian 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  165 

use  of  riches,  and  also  the  rule  of  martyrdom,  on  both 
of  which  points,  even  before  his  time,  the  mass  of  Chris- 
tians had  run  into  absurdities.  In  relation  to  the  latter 
subject,  let  Clement's  good  sense  (Strom,  lib.  iv.)  be 
compared  with  the  extravagance  of  Ignatius.  The  com- 
parison will  atlbrd  a  proof,  one  of  many,  that  the  calm 
reason  and  genuine  dignity  which  distinguish  the  con- 
duct and  writings  of  the  apostles,  did  not  attach  even  to 
their  immediate  successors. 

But  we  have  now  to  cite  the  evidence  of  Clement  on 
the  special  point  in  hand,  and  in  proof  of  our  position, 
that  although  a  dissentient  voice  might  be  heard  once  in 
a  century,  the  church  at  large  had,  from  the  earliest  pe- 
riod to  which  our  documents  extend,  admitted  a  perni- 
cious illusion  subversive  as  well  of  morals  as  of  piety. 
The  evidence  of  Clement,  as  I  have  stated,  is  of  that 
conclusive  kind  which  results  from  the  struggle  of  a  soli- 
tary sound  mind,  in  resisting  the  inundation  of  error.  I 
request  you,  however,  especially  to  remember,  that  if, 
in  some  of  the  passages  now  to  be  adduced,  the  force  of 
my  inference  might  seem  to  be  lessened  by  the  circum- 
stance that  our  author  is  professedly  contendino-  with 
certain  heretics,  and  not  opposing  himself  to  the  general 
opinion  of  the  church,  I  have  at  hand  the  instant  means 
of  excluding  any  such  exception,  by  turning  to  the  con- 
temporary orthodox  writers,  and  their  immediate  suc- 
cessors, who  go  to  the  same  length  of  extravagance, 
saving  an  impious  or  indecent  phrase  or  two,  which 
Clement  reports  as  attaching  to  the  opinions  of  the  here- 
tics he  names.  I  adduce  him,  therefore,  as  an  unexcep- 
tionable witness  to  the  alleged  fact,  that,  within  consi- 
derably less  than  a  hundred  years  from  the  death  of  the 
last  of  the  apostles,  the  church,  at  large,  had  yielded 
15 


166  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

itself  to  a  capital  and  widely  extended   error  of  senti- 
ment, practice,  and  theory. 

Clement  (Strom,  lib.  iii.)  while  refuting,  on  one  side 
the  profligate,  and  on  the  other  side  the  fanatical  heretics 
of  his  time,  emph:)ys  scriptural  and  rational  arguments, 
of  which  neither  Cyprian,  nor  TeFtullian,  could  have 
availed  themselves,  without  condemning  the  system  to 
which  they,  and  the  church,  had  pledged  tliemselves. 
He  urges,  in  a  tone  o{ modern  good  sense,  and  \\\  a  man- 
ner of  which  very  few  instances  are  to  be  found  in  the 
writings  of  the  fatliers,  the  general  principle,  that  "  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  not  meat  and  drink,  or  a  system  of 
formal  and  visible  observances,  or  of  servile  abstinences 
from  ordinary  enjoyments;  but  righteousness  and  peace: 
and  that  it  is  the  inner,  nor  the  outer  man,  which  God 
chiefly  looks  to."  He,  moreover,  points  it  out  as  a  cha- 
racteristic of  "  antichrist,  and  of  the  apostncy  of  the  last 
limes,  that  there  sliould  be  those  wlio  wouhl  forbid  to 
marry,  and  command  to  abstain  from  meats;"  and  in  fact 
he  very  nearly  approaclies  a  prote>)tunt  style  of  remon- 
strance, against  the  then  spreading  fanaticism.  It  ap- 
pears that,  while  the  church  had  borrowed  the  institute 
of  religious  celibacy  from  the  heathen  v/orship,  it  un- 
happily availed  itself  of  the  wild  errors  of  heretics  in 
getting  up,  among  the  people,  the  false  excitement  wiience 
this  institute  was  lo  gather  its  victims.  Clement's  plain 
good  sense,  in  asserun;^-  the  honour  and  sanctity  of  vir- 
tuous matrimony,  not  only  contradicts  the  particular  er- 
rors of  the  heretics  whom  he  names,  but  it  stands  op- 
posed to  that  notion  which,  every  where  else,  presents 
itself,  of  moral  or  spiritual  degradation,  as  attaching  to 
that  state;  so  as  that  those  who  abjured  it  stood  upon  a 
higher  platform,  whence  they  might  look  down,  with 
pity  or  scorn,  upon  the  mass  of  their  brethren.     It  was 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  167 

this  very  notion  that  was  the  seed  of  mischief,  which, 
at  an  early  period,  choked  the  ecclesiastical  field  with  a 
rank  and  poisonous  vegetation. 

"  What,"  asks  our  author,  "  what,  may  not  self-com- 
mand be  preserved  under  the  conditions  of  married  life? 
May  not  marriage  be  used,  and  yet  continence  respected, 
without  our  attempting  to  sever  that  which  the  Lord 
hath  joined?"  Presently  afterwards  he  touches  the  prin- 
ciple of  real  virtue,  which  the  church  at  large  was  then 
losing  sight  of,  in  the  pursuit  of  a  phantom.  "  The 
kingdom  of  God  is  not  meat  and  drink;  and  in  like  man- 
ner as  genuine  humility  consists  in  meekness  of  soul, 
not  in  the  maceration  of  the  body;  so,  and  in  like  man- 
ner (true)  continence,  is  a  virtue  of  the  soul,  and  relates 
to  that  which  is  hidden  (in  the  heart)  not  to  the  outward 
life." 

Just  so  much  good  sense  and  Christian  truth  as  this, 
it  is  hard  to  meet  with,  in  whole  folios  of  the  fathers. 
What  a  different  story  would  church  history  have  pre- 
sented, if  principles  so  manifestly  reasonable,  had  been 
generally  regarded?  But  now,  at  a  time  earlier  only  by 
a  few  years  than  that  in  which  we  hear  the  fanatic  Ter- 
tullian,  with  affected  horror,  putting  the  question — ''Di- 
gamus  tinguis,  Digamus  offers,"  Clement  demands  of 
those  who  would  fain  be  holier  than  the  Lord  himself, 
whether  they  really  mean  to  reprove  the  apostles,  two 
of  whom  (at  least)  Peter  and  Philip,  were  fathers,  the 
latter  moreover  having  given  his  daughters  in  marriage; 
or  Paul,  who  asks — "  Have  we  not  power  to  lead  about 
a  sister  or  wife,  even  as  the  other  apostles?"  Farther 
on,  our  author,  and  with  much  copiousness,  offers  a 
eulogium  of  woman — woman,  the  helper  and  compa- 
nion of  man — woman,  the  wife,  and  mother;  and  in  all 
which  there  is  nothing  of  the  fulsome  nonsense  about 


168  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

virginity,  which  renders  the  perusal  of  the  fathers,  ge- 
nerally, so  nauseating;  and  he  affirms  too  the  equality  of 
the  sexes,  in  regard  to  piety  and  virtue.  If,  in  fact,  Cy- 
prian and  Tertullian  had  been  writers  of  the  ninth  cen- 
tury, we  might  well,  in  comparing  them  with  Clement, 
have  pointed  to  the  difference,  vast  and  glaring  as  it  is, 
and  have  thereby  confirmed  ourselves  in  the  common 
notion,  that  popery  was  a  gradual  departure  from  the 
good  sense  and  purity  of  the  early  times  of  the  church. 
But  in  truth  these  writers  were  the  actual  contempora- 
ries, though  younger  men,  of  Clement;  and  a  portraiture 
of  the  Christianity  of  the  period  is  to  be  found  in  their 
works,  not  in  his. 

It  is  true  that  many  of  the  fathers,  or  most  of  them, 
in  their  headlong  course  of  fanaticism,  and  while  beating 
the  "  drum  ecclesiastic,"  to  get  recruits  for  the  monas- 
tery, think  it  due  to  their  reputation  to  pull  in  for  a  mo- 
ment, once  and  again,  and  in  so  many  words  to  disclaim 
the  heresy  of  attributing  the  matrimonial  institute  to  the 
devil.  Yet  the  mere  fact  of  their  feeling  it  necessary 
to  do  so,  is  proof  enough  of  the  extent  to  which  they 
were  running.  But,  so  far  as  I  know,  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria is  the  only  extant  writer,  of  the  early  ages,  who 
adheres  to  common  sense,  and  apostolic  Christianity, 
through  and  through.  Those  wlio,  at  a  later  date,  ven- 
tured to  protest  against  the  universal  error,  were  instant- 
ly cursed  and  put  down  as  heretics,  by  all  the  great  di- 
vines of  their  times;  and  were,  in  fact,  deprived  of  the 
means  of  transmitting  their  opinions  to  be  more  equita- 
bly judged  of  by  posterity. 

It  appears,  or  at  least  we  should  gather  it  from  the 
language  of  Clement,  that  at  Alexandria,  the  choir  of  vir- 
gins had  not,  in  his  time,  been  regularly  constituted,  as 
a  standing  order  in  the  church;  for  where  this  band  had 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  169 

been  so  sanctioneJ,  it  always  took  precedence  of  the 
corps  of  widows,  and  is  mentioned,  wlien  they,  as  a  part 
of  the  ecclesiastical  system,  are  mentioned.  But  (Strom. 
lib.  i.)  where  our  author,  in  a  formal  manner,  enume- 
rates the  three  orders  of  the  clergy  (as  he  does  once  and 
again)  presbyters,  bishops,  and  deacons,  he  subjoins, 
*'  and  the  widows."  Now  in  the  *'  Apostolic  Constitu- 
tions," in  the  canons  of  the  Ante-Nicene  councils,  and 
generally,  in  the  writers  of  the  same  period,  where  any 
enumeration  of  orders  occurs,  it  is — "  tlie  virgins  and 
the  widows." 

In  Clement's  time,  as  he  says,  "  the  wells  of  martyr- 
dom were  flowing  daily;"  we  may  therefore  presume 
that  as  much  of  general  seriousness,  and  sincerity,  at- 
tached to  tlie  Christian  community  then,  as  usually  be- 
longed to  it;  and  yet  what  sort  of  description  does  he 
give  us — altogether  calm  in  its  style — of  the  usual  ap- 
pearances, on  a  Sunday,  at  the  church  doors,  when  the 
congregation  broke  up?  Why,  one  might  imagine  one- 
self to  be  loitering  about  the  doors  of  a  fashionable  cha- 
pel, in  London,  Bath,  or  Brighton.  A  world  of  illu- 
sions is  sometimes  dispelled  by  a  very  few  simple  sen- 
tences; and  I  think  that  were  certain  devout  and  credu- 
dulous  worshippers  of  "  venerable  antiquity,"  and  of 
the  "  holy  and  ancient  church,"  by  chance  to  open  upon 
the  page  of  Clement  which  is  now  before  me,  having 
first  been  told  that  it  described  the  breaking  up  of  an 
assembly  of  the  "martyr  church,"  within  a  hundred 
years  after  the  death  of  St.  John,  they  would  scarcely 
think  themselves  the  same  persons  after  having  read  it. 
Yet  there  is  nothing  extraordinary  in  this  passage,  there 
is  no  solemn  lifting  of  a  veil  of  mystery;  absolutory  no- 
thing but  an  incidental  allusion  to  facts,  of  an  ordinary 
kind; — it  is  a  description  which  might  find  its  counter- 
15* 


170  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

part  in  any  ag-e,  or  any  country,  and  is  worthy  of  being 
noted  on  no  account  but  because  it  tends  to  dissipate  the 
fond,  unphilosophical,  and,  as  it  now  happens,  the  mis- 
chievous fancy  about  "pristine  purity,"  and  a  golden 
age,  to  which  we  ungodly  moderns  should  devoutly  yield 
our  judgments  and  conform  our  practices. 

"Those  who  make  profession  of  Christianity,"  says 
Clement,  "  should  be  all  of  a  piece — they  should,  in  the 
entire  course  of  their  lives,  preserve  a  decorum  and  con- 
sistency, such  as  might  agree  with  the  exterior  gravity 
to  which  they  fashion  themselves,  just  while  at  church; 
and  they  should  strive  to  be,  not  merely  to  appear,  what 
they  would  pass  ior; — so  meek,  so  religious,  so  loving. 
But  now,  and  how  it  is  I  hardly  know,  our  folks,  with 
change  of  place,  change  also  their  guize,  and  their  modes 
of  behaviour;  and  are  something  like  polypi,  which,  as 
ihey  say,  resemble  the  rock  on  which  they  chance  to 
fasten,  and  take  their  tinge  from  its  colour.  So  these, 
the  moment  they  get  out  of  chapel,  lay  aside  the  denniro 
and  godly  colour  of  sanctity,  which  tiiey  had  worn  while 
there;  and,  mingling  in  the  crowd,  are  no  longer  to  be 
distinguished  from  it.  Or,  as  I  ought  rather  to  say,  tliey 
then  put  off  that  well  fashioned  mask  of  gravity,  which 
they  had  assumed,  aiitl  are  found  to  be  such  as  they  hail 
not  passed  for.  After  having  reverently  waited  upon 
Cod,  and  heard  of  him  (in  the  church)  they  leave  him 
there;  and,  out  of  doors,  find  their  pleasure  in  ungodly 
fiddling,  and  love  ditties,  and  what  not — stage  playing, 
and  gross  revelries.  Thus,  while  they  sing  and  respond, 
these  (iKir  people)  who  just  before  had  been  celebrating 
the  glories  of  immortality,  wickedly  take  their  part  in 
the  most  pernicious  canticles; — as  if  saying.  Let  us  eat 
and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die.  They  indeed,  not  to- 
morrow, but  now  already,  are  dead  unto  God."" 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  171 

Much  more,  nearly  to  the  same  purport,  might  be 
cited,  were  it  needful,  from  the  pages  of  Clement.  In 
a  word,  his  was  an  unimpassioned  mind;  and  while  he 
calmly  and  steadily  insisted  upon  (so  far  as  he  understood 
it)  the  inspired  rule  of  morality,  he  saw  things  around 
him,  just  as  they  were,  and  speaks  of  them,  just  as  he 
found  them;  and  his  testimony,  about  which  there  is  no- 
thing cynical,  ought  to  be  accepted  as  of  the  highest 
value,  in  correcting  the  false  impression  which  is  made 
upon  our  minds  by  others,  who,  as  they  saw  every  thing 
in  an  artificial  glare,  so  allowed  themselves  a  wide  license 
in  describing  the  illusions  of  their  own  distempered  sight. 
There  are  those,  now,  I  do  not  doubt,  who,  determined 
to  retain  the  fond  fancy  of  a  golden  pristine  age,  will 
turn  with  resentment  from  a  matter-of-fact  writer  like  Cle- 
ment, as  if  he  did  them  a  personal  wrong  in  simply 
speaking  the  truth.  For  my  own  part,  I  can  find  no 
pleasure  in  any  thing,  bearing  upon  religion,  but  the 
plainest  truth.  And  the  plain  truth,  in  relation  to  the 
early  church,  is  just  to  this  efiect — That,  although  pos- 
sessing, incidentally,  certain  prerogatives  which  render 
its  testimony  and  judgment,  on  particular  points,  pecu- 
liarly important,  it  can  advance  no  extraordinary  claim 
to  reverence,  on  the  supposed  plea  of  having  possessed 
superior  wisdom,  discretion,  or  purity.  And  farther,  I 
would  be  bold  to  express  my  belief  that,  if  we  exclude 
certain  crazed  fanatics  of  our  times,  the  least  esteemed 
community  of  orthodox  Christians,  among  us — which 
ever  that  may  be,  if  taken  in  the  mass,  and  fairly  mea- 
sured against  the  church  catholic  of  the  first  two  centu- 
ries, would  outweigh  it  decisively  in  each  of  these  quali- 
ties; I  mean,  in  Christian  wisdom,  in  common  discretion, 
in  purity  of  manners,  and  in  purity  of  creed.     Nay,  1 


172  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

am  strongly  tempted  to  think  that,  if  our  Oxford  divines 
themselves,  and  those  who  are  used  to  take  the  law  from 
their  lips,  and  to  learn  church  history  at  their  feet,  could 
but  be  blindfolded  (if  any  such  precaution,  in  their  case 
were  needed)  and  were  fairly  set  down  in  the  midst  of 
tlie  pristine  church,  at  Carthage,  or  at  Alexandria,  or  at 
Rome,  or  at  Antioch,  they  would  be  fain  to  make  their 
escape,  with  all  possible  celerity,  toward  their  own  times 
and  country;  and  that  thenceforward  w^e  should  never 
hear  another  word  from  them  about  "  venerable  antiqui- 
ty," or  the  holy  catholic  church  of  the  first  ages.  The 
effect  of  such  a  trip  would,  I  tliink,  resemble  that  j)ro- 
duced  sometimes  by  crossing  the  Atlantic,  upon  those 
who  iiave  set  out,  westward,  excellent  liberals,  and  have 
returned  eastward,  as  excellent  tories. 

There  is  one  very  simple  illusion,  or  as  one  might 
call  it,  chronological  fallacy,  which  it  may  seem  almost 
an  afi'ront  to  common  sense  to  mention;  and  yet  I  be- 
lieve that  more  tlian  a  few  are  set  wrong  a  fifty  years  or 
even  more,  in  their  notions  of  Christian  history  in  this 
very  way.  For  instance,  when  the  second  century  is 
spoken  of,  one  may,  without  thougiit,  admit  the  suppo- 
sition that  a  period  of  something  like  two  hundred  years, 
dating  from  the  death  of  the  apostles,  is  intended; 
whereas  the  notions  or  practices  referred  to,  as  belonging 
to  the  second  century,  may  have  had  place  wiihin  the 
distance  of  one  hundred  years  from  the  cessation  of  the 
apostolic  influence;  and  in  fact  they  may  be  as  ancient 
as  any  thing  concerning  which  we  are  to  derive  our  in- 
formation from  uninspired  Christian  writers.  It  is  thus 
with  tlie  practices  with  which  we  are  now  concerned; 
and  which  are  as  ancient  as  any  other  characteristics  of 
ancient  Christianitv. 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  173 

I  have  referred,  above,  to  Justin's  statement  concern- 
ing those  who  had  dedicated  themselves  to  the  Lord,  at 
a  time  when  some  of  the  apostles  yet  survived.  Igna- 
tius clearly  alludes  to  the  same  practice  as  then  preva- 
lent; and  he  does  so  in  terms  indicative  of  the  false  and 
inflated  sentiments  which  have  in  all  ages  been  the  at- 
tendants of  this  ill-considered  endeavour  to  be  *'  religious 
over  much."  "  If  any  one  (Epist.  ad  Polycarp.)  be  able 
to  abide  in  purity  (celibacy)  in  honour  of  the  Lord's 
flesh,  let  him  do  so  without  boasting.  If  he  boast,  he  is 
lost;  or  if  he  consider  himself,  on  that  account,  to  be 
more  than  the  bishop,  he  perishes." 

It  is  not  surmising  too  much  to  assume  it  as  probable 
that,  among  the  means  resorted  to  by  the  self-w^illed  and 
contumacious,  for  resisting  the  episcopal  authority,  and 
of  which  Ignatius  was  so  zealous  an  advocate,  this  set- 
ling  up  for  a  fakir,  was  one,  and  perhaps  it  was  one  of 
the  most  efficacious.  See,  on  this  point,  the  second  sec- 
tion of  the  epistle  to  Hero.  And  as,  at  a  later  time,  the 
confessors  found  themselves  possessed  of  a  credit  with 
the  populace  which  enabled  them  to  defy  legitimate  au- 
thority, so,  from  the  very  first,  whoever  could  be  stark 
monk  enough  to  make  himself  the  idol  of  the  rabble,  be- 
came a  leader  of  faction,  and  overawed  the  bishops  and 
presbyters.  Unhappily  these,  and  the  long  series  of 
writers,  favoured,  instead  of  wisely  repressing,  the  false 
piety  that  subverted  order  as  well  as  morals.  I  would 
not,  however,  omit  to  mention  that  Ignatius  (ad  Heron.) 
fully  and  clearly  vindicates  matrimony,  and  honours  wo- 
man. 

To  the  same  purport,  as  in  the  passage  cited  above, 
the  same  father,  (to  the  Phiiippians)  but  in  terms  just  so 
far  diversified  as  to  carry  a  little  more  historical  mean- 
ing, says,  after  exhorting  husbands  and  wives  to  love 
each  other,  "  If  any  lead  the  life  of  purity  (that  is,  pre- 


174  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

serve  virginity)  or  if  any  one  practise  continence  (that 
is,  either  withdraw  from  husband  or  wife,  or,  being  wi- 
dowed, avoid  a  second  marriage)  let  him  not  be  lifted  up 
in  mind,  lest  he  lose  the  reward."  Much  is  compre- 
hended in  these  few  words;  as,  first,  and  in  general,  a 
clear  allusion  to  the  then  frequent  practice  of  religious 
celibacy;  next,  there  is  a  note  of  the  distinction  which  we 
find  carefully  observed,  between  the  pure,  and  the  conti- 
nent— terms  equivalent,  in  ecclesiastical  import,  to  the 
correlatives — nun,  and  widow,  the  former  occupying  a 
loftier  place  of  honour  than  the  latter.  In  another  place 
he  says — "  Guard  the  virgins,  as  Christ's  jewels,"  an 
epithet  often  afterward  applied  to  them.  Ignatius  also 
uses,  and  perhaps  was  the  author  of  that  favourite  phrase, 
applied  to  nuns — "  tlie  espoused  to  Christ."  Next, 
there  is  the  necessary  caution  against  that  pride  which 
had  been  found  to  attend  this  species  of  church  nubility; 
and  lastly,  there  is  the  reference  to  that  definite  and  pe- 
culiar celestial  remuneration  which  was  to  attach  to  the 
band  of  virgins.  Each  of  these  indications,  minute  as 
they  may  seem,  is  pertinent  to  an  historical  inquiry. 

The  Apostolic  Constitutions  are  manifestly  a  very 
early,  although  a  spurious  work;  and  it  was  evidently 
put  together  with  the  intention  of  its  passing  as  the  pro- 
duction of  the  apostolic  age.  So  far  it  may  safely  be 
cited  as  good  evidence  in  our  present  inquiry;  and  here 
we  lind  fully  admitted  that  general  feeling  of  the  ancient 
church  upon  which  Tertullian  labours  to  build  a  still 
loftier  doctrine.  I  mean,  the  feeling  that,  although  a 
priest  might  be  a  married  man,  yet  that  a  degree  of  de- 
gradation attached  to  that  condition,  so  as  that,  either  to 
marry  after  ordination,  or  to  have  contracted  a  second 
marriage,  was  a  total  disqualification  for  the  sacred  office; 
see,  on  this  point,  the  seventeenth  chapter  of  the  sixth 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  175 

book;  and  this  same  canon  exhibits  the  bondage  of  early 
Christians  to  the  false  principle  which  puts  forms  for 
substances;  for,  in  allowing  to  the  inferior  church  offi- 
cers, the  singers,  readers,  and  door  keepers,  a  little  more 
license,  it  assumes  first,  the  absurdity  that  there  could 
be  degrees  of  holiness,  corresponding  to  the  degrees 
of  ecclesiastical  dignity;  and  tlien,  that  the  circum- 
stance of  being  married,  or  single,  or  the  having  mar- 
ried once,  or  twice,  had  any  thing  whatever  to  do  with 
a  Christian's  real  sanctity.  This  twofold  delusion, 
despicable  as  we  must  think  it,  stands  forward  as  the 
broad  ciiaracteristic  of  the  ancient  church  catholic.  I 
remember,  in  fact,  no  one  but  Clement  of  Alexandria, 
for  whom  an  exemption  can  be  claimed  in  this  respect; 
nor  even  for  him  in  all  instances.  These  Constitutions 
name  also  the  two  choirs,  of  nuns  and  widows,  as  then 
permanently  constituted.  The  former,  however,  are 
warned  against  professing  rashly;  and  it  is  forbidden  to 
employ  any  means  of  compulsion  in  inducing  them  to 
do  so; — "  for,  in  regard  to  the  virgin  state,  we  have  no 
commandment  (as  from  the  Lord)  only  that,  once  having 
professed,  such  should  adorn  their  profession." 

The  passages  that  have  been  cited,  and,  if  these  were 
not  enough,  three  times  the  quantity  are  at  hand  to  be 
produced,  may,  I  think,  be  accepted  as  warranting  what 
is  affirmed  in  my  second  proposition,  concerning  the 
liigh  antiquity  of  the  notions,  and  of  the  accompanying 
practices,  of  religious  celibacy.  That  is  to  say,  this  in- 
stitute, with  all  ihat  involves,  is  as  ancient  as  any  other 
element  of  ancient  Christianity,  and  may  claim  from  us 
as  much  regard  as  is  urged  in  behalf  of  any  other  prac- 
tice or  opinion,  on  the  ground  of  antiquity.  In  one 
word,  religious  celibacy  comes  fully  under  the  quqd 
SEMPER,  or  first  condition  of  Vincent's  rule  of  catholicity. 


176  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 


THE  THIRD  AND  FOURTH  PROPOSITIONS, 
AND  CONCLUDING  REMARKS. 

We  have  next  to  look  at  the — quod  ubique,  and  the — 
quod  ab  omnibus,  in  relation  to  our  present  subject;  that 
is  to  show,  that  this  principle,  and  these  practices,  be- 
longed to,  and  were  thoroughly  approved  of  by,  the  an- 
cient church,  throughout  its  whole  extent,  so  far  as  our 
historical  materials  enable  us  to  ascertain  the  fact;  and 
were  explicitly  maintained  and  promoted  by  all  tlie 
great  leaders  of  the  religious  commonwealth;  and  were 
excepted  against  by  only  here  and  there  a  solitary  voice, 
which  was  almost  instantly  stifled  by  orthodox  zeal. 

However  warmly  the  ulterior  inferences  I  have  in 
view  may  be  resented  by  some,  I  am  sure  they  are  not 
the  persons  who  will  come  forward  to  call  in  question 
the  facts  which  I  here  assume.  On  this  ground,  there- 
fore, the  actual  citation  of  proofs  might  be  waived.  But, 
in  truth,  as  the  establishment  and  illustration  of  my  fifth 
thesis,  and  which  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  make 
good,  will  demand  a  reference,  more  or  less  copious,  to 
the  extant  works  of  almost  every  ecclesiastical  writer 
of  the  first  seven  centuries,  these  numerous  citations 
will,  of  course,  embrace  whatever  would  have  offered 
itself  as  proper  for  establishing  the  third  and  fourth  pro- 
positions. We  ma}^  therefore,  save  ourselves  the  labour 
of  going  through  a  mass  of  duplicate  evidences;  and  I 
therefore,  in  this  place,  and  once  for  all,  request  you  to 
bear  in  mind  that,  if  either  of  these  propositions  were 
disputed,  an  ample  confirmation  of  them  is  to  be  found 
in  the  series  of  quotations  which  are  to  sustain  the  fifih. 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  17T 

For  the  present,  tlien,  I  assume  it  as  incontrovertible, 
wliatever  consequences  it  may  be  found  to  involve,  that 
llie  doctrine  and  custom  of  religious  celibacy  was  an  ar- 
ticle of  ancient  Christianity,  accepted  and  followed — 
semper,  ubique,  et  ab  omnibus. 

But  at  this  point  I  am  anxious  to  anticipate,  and  to 
preclude,  some  probable  exceptions,  by  means  of  which 
it  may  be  attempted  to  evade  the  general  inferences  I 
have  in  view.  As,  for  example,  there  may  be  those,  al- 
though it  is  certainly  not  the  well-informed,  who  will 
say,  "This  notion,  and  these  practices,  so  far  as  they 
might  be  culpable,  were  incidental  merely,  and  may 
easily  be  separated  from  the  general  scheme  of  ancient 
Christianity,  leaving  us  free  to  admire  and  imitate  all 
the  rest."  Now,  I  must  ask,  what  are  the  senses  in 
which,  in  such  a  connexion,  we  might  fairly  apply  the 
term  incidental,  to  an  error  of  opinion  and  practice? 
The  word  may  mean,  then,  a  notion  or  practice  which 
gained  credit  only  for  awhile,  and  which,  having  had 
its  day,  was  forgotten;  or,  at  most,  rose  to  the  surface 
only  at  remote  intervals.  But  in  no  such  sense  as  this 
was  the  doctrine  of  religious  celibacy  incidental  to  the 
ancient  church;  for  there  is  no  period,  ever  so  short,  that 
can  be  named,  during  which  it  lost  its  place  or  import- 
ance:  on  the  contrary,  it  steadily  held  its— we  may  sig- 
nificantly s^Ly— proud  pre-eminence,  from  the  earliest 
times  to  the  latest. 

Or,  incidental  may  mean,  in  this  instance,  that,  while 
some  one  or  two  of  the  ancient  churches  warmly  em-^ 
braced  the  notion,  and  carried  their  admiration  of  it  to 
an  extravagant  length,  in  other  departments  of  the  Chris- 
tian commonwealth,  it  was  little  heard  of,  or  was  coolly 
regarded,  or  actually  discountenanced.  But  in  this  sense 
16 


178  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

also  the  term  is  excluded,  inasmuch  as  the  churches  of 
the  east,  and  the  west,  the  north,  and  the  south,  vied 
with  each  other  in  their  zeal  on  this  ground;  or,  if  all 
looked  toward  the  east — Syria  and  Egypt — for  bright 
patterns  of  excellence,  in  this  walk  of  virtue,  all  showed 
substantially  the  same  devotion  in  ascending  the  arduous 
path;  and  many  were  the  pious  pilgrimages,  of  some  of 
which  the  memorials  are  on  our  shelves,  that  were  un- 
dertaken expressly  for  the  purpose  of  importing,  into  the 
remotest  Christian  regions,  the  spirit  and  usages  of  this 
very  institute. 

Or,  again,  the  term  incidenlal,  thus  employed,  might 
mean,  an  opinion  or  institution,  zealously  promoted  by 
a  party  or  faction,  within  or  without  the  church;  but  by 
no  means  favoured  by  its  authorities,  or  by  the  mass  ot 
its  members.  In  no  such  sense  then  can  we  here  em- 
ploy the  word.  From  age  to  age  it  was  the  church  au- 
thorities, it  was  the  most  illustrious  teachers  and  writers, 
that  made  it  their  glory  to  magnify  this  institute,  and  to 
extend  its  influence:  nor  were  tiiey,  on  this  subject, 
listened  to  unwillingly  by  the  people. 

There  is,  however,  one  other  sense  of  the  word,  in 
which,  if  it  could  in  fact  be  applied  to  the  subject,  it 
might  be  held  either  to  loosen  or  to  lessen  the  force  of 
the  serious  inferences  I  am  intending.  That  is  to  say, 
if  it  could  be  affirmed  that  the  theological  principle,  and 
the  moral  sentiment,  imbodied  in  tlie  institute  of  religious 
celibacy,  are  easil}^  separable  from  the  theological,  ethi- 
cal, and  ecclesiastical  system  of  which  it  was  an  adjunct; 
and  that  it  had  therewith  no  sucli  intimate  and  occult  al- 
liances as  would  render  a  disjunction  difficult,  or  such  as 
must  affect  the  whole:  then,  indeed,  it  would  only  re- 
main for  us  to  perform  the  desirable  amputation,  and  sa 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  179 

to  restore  health  and  symmetry  to  the  body.  But  that 
no  such  allegation  can  be  sustained,  I  shall  be  able  in- 
conlestably  to  prove;  and,  in  doing  so,  shall,  as  I  con- 
fidently hope,  succeed  in  affording  the  most  convincing 
proof  of  the  fact,  that  the  Christian  teachers,  from  the 
very  first,  and,  ^vhile  they  held  the  formal  elements  of 
truth,  or,  as  it  is  called,  orthodoxy,  grossly  misappre- 
hended the  genius  and  purport  of  Christianity;  and,  as 
a  consequence  of  this  misapprehension,  turned  out  of  its 
course  every  Christian  institute,  and  put  on  a  false  foun- 
dation every  principle  of  virtue;  and  thus  transmuted  the 
Christian  system  into  a  scheme  which  could  find  no 
other  fixed  form  than  that  of  a  foul  superstition,  and  a 
lawless  despotism. 

I  think,  moreover,  that  the  intimacy  of  the  connexion 
between  the  institute  in  question  and  the  other  elements 
of  ancient  Christianity  will  so  appear  as  will  serve  to 
clear  up  the  practical  embarrassments  that  have  attached, 
in  modern  times,  to  every  endeavour  to  realize  these, 
apart  from  the  other.  Such  imitations  have  always  de- 
manded some  foreign  aid  to  keep  them  in  existence,  and 
can  subsist  only  so  long  as  they  may  chance  to  derive 
vital  force  and  nutriment  from  an  extraneous  body.  In 
this  conviction  I  can  think  nothing  else  probable  but 
that,  should  the  scheme  of  doctrine  maintained  in  the 
Oxford  Tracts  become,  by  any  means,  actually  detached 
from  its  present  hold  on  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  insti- 
tutions of  the  country,  and  be  exempted  also  from  re- 
straint;— in  a  word,  fairly  left  to  itself,  and  allowed  to 
follow  its  innate  affinities,  it  would  instantly  resume  its 
severed  element — the  ancient  doctrine  and  practice  of 
celestial  virginity.  It  may  seem  utterly  incredible  that 
Englishmen,  and  those  who  have  actually  stood  in  the 
radiance  of  scriptural  illumination,  and  have  read  the 


180  A  TEST  OF  THE  ?,IORAL  CONDITION 

lessons  of  history,  should  yield  themselves  to  an  illusion 
such  as  this.  To  me,  all  this  appears  far  from  incredi- 
ble; and,  unless  a  timely  caution,  and  the  fear  of  suddenly 
forfeiting-  the  allegiance  of  numbers,  should  avail  to  re^ 
tard  the  course  of  things,  it  is  what  I  think  may  be  daily 
looked  for. 

But  we  must  meet,  in  all  its  strength,  a  startling  diffi- 
culty, which  will  no  doubt  have  occurred  to  some,  in  re- 
flecting upon  the  facts  to  which,  in  the  preceding  pages, 
I  have  made  reference.  Granting,  as  we  must  grant,  that 
the  institute  of  celibacy,  when  it  reached  its  mature  state, 
and  involving-,  as  it  necessarily  did,  an  open  contraven- 
tion of  the  apostolic  precepts  concerning  the  clergy,  was 
a  great  and  mischievous  error,  yet  did  it  not  take  its 
rise  from  the  language  of  our  Lord  himself,  and  of  Paul; 
and  does  not  the  conduct  of  those  who,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, devoted  themselves  to  celibacy,  at  the  least  stand 
excused  from  reprehension,  if  it  be  not  fully  justified 
by  the  passages  of  scripture  usually/ cited  in  this  in- 
stance? 

Now  I  wish  the  difFiculty  tlius  stated  to  be  felt  in  its 
utmost  force.  Let  it  be  granted,  then,  that  the  entire 
scheme,  with  all  its  consequences,  and  which  have  con- 
stituted, in  the  end,  the  vital  elements  of  the  Komish  su- 
perstition, took  its  commencement,  and  in  a  manner 
barely  culpable,  from  certain  expressions  (albeit  mis- 
understood) of  the  inspired  writings.  Now,  this  admis- 
sion, which  I  think  must  in  candour  be  made,  gives  us 
precisely  that  connecting  link,  which  renders  the  in- 
stance available  for  the  purpose,  with  a  view  to  which 
it  has  been  here  adduced.  Unless  it  had  appeared  that 
the  principle  aiwl  practice  of  religious  celibacy  took  their 
start  from  the  scriptures  themselves,  neither  that  high 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  181 

antiquity  which  we  have  proved  to  attach  to  them,  nor 
the  universal  testimony  of  the  church  in  their  favour, 
would  have  warranted  the  use  I  am  making  of  the  in- 
stance, as  closely  analogous  to  the  several  points  now 
controverted. 

But  as  it  stands,  there  is  absolutely  nothing  that  can 
be  advanced  in  favour  of  any  one  of  those  now  disputed 
articles  of  belief,  or  of  usage,  which  may  not,  and  to  the 
whole  extent  of  the  terms,  be  pleaded  in  behalf  of  the 
institute  of  celibacy.  Are  they  immemorially  ancient? — 
so  is  this.  Did  they  receive  the  assent  and  warm  ap- 
probation of  the  long  series  of  Christian  doctors? — so  did 
this.  Were  they  acknowledged  and  followed  out  in  the 
practices  of  the  apostolic  churches,  throughout  the  world? 
— so  was  this;  and  finally,  may  they  pretend  to  a  colour 
of  support,  or  more  than  a  colour,  from  some  (ew  ex- 
pressions of  the  inspired  writers? — so  may  this.  I  chal- 
lenge contradiction  in  affirming  that  the  monastic  sys- 
tem, and  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy,  rest  on  ground  as 
wide  and  as  solid  as  that  which  sustains  any  one  of  the 
doctrines  or  practices  which  it  has  been  the  peculiar  in- 
tention of  the  Oxford  Tracts  to  recommend. 

There  are,  as  I  presume,  very  few  protestants  (it  is 
hard  to  imagine  how  there  can  be  one  such)  or  any  cler- 
gyman of  the  protestant  church,  who  would  profess  to 
think  the  monkish  institute,  abstractedly,  good,  and  the 
celibacy  of  the  clergy  a  wise  and  useful  provision;  or 
who  would  wish  to  see  this  system,  and  the  notions  and 
sentiments  that  attend  it,  brought  back  upon  ys,  in  any 
form  whatever.  Although  it  may  have  been  fondly  em- 
braced— semper,  ubique,  et  ab  omnibus — it  is  to  be  re- 
jected; and  although  it  may  have  its  texts  of  scripture  at 
hand,  nevertheless  it  is  to  be  rejected.  In  ihis  instance 
we  claim  exemption,  not  merely  from  the  usurpations 
16* 


182  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION' 

and  corruptions  of  Rome,  but  from  the  unbroken  and 
loudly  uttered  authority  of  the  holy  catholic  church;  and 
when  it  was  in  its  (supposed)  condition  of  pristine  purity. 
Nor  is  this  all;  for  we  go  on  calmly  to  consider  the  real 
import  of  the  passages  wliich  have  been  made  to  bear 
the  weight  of  this  system;  and  we  compare  such  single 
passages  with  the  plain  import  of  other  passages;  and 
with  the  general  purport  of  the  inspired  writings;  and 
we  judge  of  them  also  by  considering  the  genius  and 
spirit  of  the  gospel;  and  having  done  so,  we  find  no  real 
difficulty  remaining;  but  only  a  very  simple  case,  de- 
manding, just  what  is  demanded  always,  namely,  the 
exercise  of  sound  good  sense  and  discrimination. 

But,  alas!  the  leaders  of  the  early  church  would  exer- 
cise no  such  discrimination:  they  would  give  place  to  no 
dictates  of  calm  good  sense ;  and  having  surrendered 
themselves  to  a  headlong  enthusiasm,  the  opoosing  im- 
port of  other  portions  of  scripture  was  totally  overlooked, 
or  perversely  evaded;  and  they  followed  whither  they 
were  led,  and  they  led  after  them  the  church  universal, 
until  altogether  plunged  into  an  abyss  of  error  and  of  cor- 
ruption. 

Now  the  course  which  every  protestant  (as  I  assume) 
is  absolutely  compelled  to  take,  when  he  is  called  upon 
to  consider  the  Romish  coelibate;  namely,  to  hold  in 
abeyance  his  reverence  for  antiquity,  and  to  claim  ex- 
emption from  the  decisions  of  the  holy  catholic  church, 
and  to  examine,  with  care  and  calmness,  the  real  pur- 
port of  scripture,  taken  at  large,  is  neither  more  nor  less 
than  what  every  sober-minded  protestant  is,  as  I  think, 
bound  to  do,  when  challenged  to  yield  himself  to  certain 
other  notions  and  practices,  characteristic  of  ancient 
Christianity.  To  do  anything  less  than  this,  is  virtually 
to  surrender  all  that  stands  between  us  and  the  mon- 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  183 

strous  superstitions  of  the  times  of  Gregory  the  Great. 
We  may  not,  perhaps,  become  Romanists;  but  we  must, 
in  all  consistency,  become  such  as  that  it  were  belter  to 
accept  Romanism,  whole  and  entire.  A  well-defined 
and  authoritative  system  (involving  elements  of  evil)  is, 
I  think,  much  to  be  preferred  to  an  undefined  system, 
involving  the  very  same  elements;  and  I  firmly  believe 
that  it  were,  on  the  whole,  better  for  a  community  to 
submit  itself,  without  conditions,  to  the  well-known  tri- 
dentine  popery,  than  to  take  up  the  Christianity  of  Am- 
brose, Basil,  Gregory  Nyssen,  Chrysostom,  Jerome,  and 
Augustine.  Personally,  I  would  rather  be  a  Christian 
after  the  fashion  of  Pascal  and  Arnold,  than  after  that  of 
Cyprian  or  Macarius;  but  how  much  rather  after  that  of 
our  own  protestant  worthies,  who,  although  entangled 
by  fond  notions  about  the  ancient  church,  were,  in  heart, 
and  in  the  main  bent  of  their  lives,  followers,  not  of  the 
fathers,  but  of  the  apostles! 

The  great  men  I  have  referred  to — the  glory  of  our 
English  protestantism,  were,  it  must  be  confessed,  en- 
tangled with  ancient  Christianity;  and  they  were  so  in 
a  degree  that  has  involved  the  church  they  founded  in 
some  serious  difficulties:  but  we  may  not  boast  over 
them;  for  we  are  ourselves  still  labouring  with  the  con- 
ceit concerning — venerable  antiquity,  and  the  purity  of 
the  early  ages;  nor  will  it  be  very  soon  that  this  invete- 
rate prejudice  will  be  altogether  and  finally  broken  up. 
Few  will  either  undergo  the  labour  of  becoming  fami- 
liarly conversant  with  the  documents  of  Christian  anti- 
quity, or  will  severely  analyze  the  notions  which  this 
prejudice  imbodies. 

In  concluding  this  tract,  1  beg  permission  to  offer 
some  assistance  in  instituting  this  necessary  analysis;  or 
rather,  plainly  to  state  the  case  which  this  prejudice  in- 


184  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

volves:  and  moreover,  will  view  it,  as  from  the  position 
of  those  who  religiously  receive  the  doctrines  of  the 
Oxford  Tracts. 

The  writers  of'  these  tracts  have,  and,  as  I  must 
humbly  think,  in  a  very  seasonable  as  well  as  able  man- 
ner, protested  against  the  modern  phase  of  infidelity, 
called — rationalism,  and  which,  if  followed  out  consis- 
tently, can  come  to  nothing  but,  first  unitarianism,  and 
then  deism,  and  then  pantheism,  and  then  the  purest 
atheism.  They  may  have  taken  an  unfair  advantage  of 
the  incautious  language  of  some  well  meaning  writers; 
but  yet  have,  as  I  thiidi,  truly  exhibited  the  inner  quality, 
and  the  necessary  tendency  of  this  modern  sclieme  of 
theology.  Moreover,  they  have  not  merely  protested 
against  this  prevailing  illusion,  but  have  admitted  the  fact 
that  it  has  actually  become  the  type  of  our  modern  pro- 
testant  Ciiristianily;  and  also,  have  intimated  their  fears 
that,  unless  vigorously  repelled,  it  will,  ere  long,  em- 
brace the  prolestant  world,  a  few  remonstrants  excepted, 
and  propel  all  down  the  slippery  descent  toward  univer- 
sal unbelief. 

Now  let  us  for  a  moment  suppose  that  nearly  as  much 
as  this,  melancholy  as  is  the  idea,  had  actually  come 
about  in  our  times;  and  that  (the  few  remonstrants  ex- 
cepted) there  was  no  other  form  of  genuine  belief  extant 
in  the  world  than  that  of  the  Romish  Church,  whicii, 
as  is  admitted,  is  laden  with  corruptions.  In  such  a  case 
then,  nor  does  it  appear  why  we  may  not  imagine  it  as 
possible,  or  even  as  probable,  there  would  prevail,  not- 
withstanding our  Lord's  promise  to  be  with  his  church 
always,  an  almost  universal  defection  or  apostacy — on  the 
one  side  toward  atheism,  on  the  other  side  toward  super- 
stition. 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  185 

We  suppose  then  such  an  apostacy  to  have  had  place, 
in  the  nineteenth  century.  Vv  hat  then  stands  in  the  way 
of  our  supposing  an  analogous  defection  to  have  be- 
longed to  some  preceding  age,  or  even  to  the  first,  or  to 
the  second?  If  we  say — the  extant  historical  evidence 
contradicts  any  such  supposition,  this  is  the  very  point 
in  dispute;  nor  can  I  allow  the  question  to  be  begged  so 
easily.  But  what  general  principle  is  there  which  for- 
bids our  admitting  such  a  proposition?-  Not  any  vague 
belief  concerning  the  divine  benevolence  toward  man- 
kind; for  this  is  unchangeable;  and,  if  it  must  have  pre- 
vented an  apostacy  in  the  first  century,  must  also  have 
prevented  it  in  the  nineteenth;  nor  by  the  same  rule, 
can  we  admit  any  other  contravening  principle,  as  ap- 
plicable to  the  one  period,  which  does  not  equally  apply 
to  the  other. 

Among  the  predictive  promises,  or  the  official  instruc- 
tions addressed  by  our  Lord  to  his  personal  followers, 
some,  very  clearly,  were  applicable  to  themselves  indi- 
vidually, and  ceased  to  have  any  operation  or  efficacy, 
at  the  moment  when  the  functions  of  these  individuals 
were  fulfilled.  Other  of  these  promises,  not  less  clearly, 
are  the  property  of  his  servants  and  ministers,  in  all 
ages.  But  is  there  so  much  as  one  of  these  words  of 
power  and  comfort,  which,  while  it  passes  onward  be- 
yond the  individuals  who  first  heard  it,  yet  does  not  pass 
forward  for  the  benefit  of  the  church  universal;  but  stays 
within  certain  limits,  as,  for  example,  the  limits  of  the 
first,  the  second,  or  the  third  centuries?  In  other  words, 
was  there  any  promise  of  guidance,  or  assistance,  or  of 
exemption  from  error,  granted  to  the  ancient  church, 
other  tlian  what  belongs,  in  its  fullest  force,  to  the  church 
of  all  ages?     I  presume  it  cannot  be  pretended  that  the 


186  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

ancient  church  had  any  such  advantage  over  ourselves; 
or  that  it  was  in  any  sense  whatever  the  occupier  of  a 
peculiar  benefit  *'  on  lease,"  or  "  for  a  term  of  years." 

But  if  not,  then  the  question  concerning  the  actual  con- 
dition of  the  ancient  church  is  entirely  open;  and  after 
we  have  dispelled  from  our  minds,  the  fancy,  really 
childish  as  it  is,  about  "  antiquity,"  and  a  "  golden  age," 
W€  then  turn,  with  perfect  coolness,  to  the  documents  in 
our  possession,  and  submit  its  pretensions  to  a  candid, 
but  unsparing  analysis. 

If  the  ancient  church  was  benefited  by  no  interposi- 
tions more  direct  than  those  which,  in  every  age,  have 
maintained  truth  and  piety  from  utter  extinction,  then  we 
must  believe,  and  must  expect  to  find  our  belief  verified, 
that,  in  coming,  as  it  did,  suddenly,  and  without  the  aid 
of  any  experience,  into  contact  with  the  most  prodigious 
evils,  it  at  once  imparted  an  impulse,  and  admitted  an  im- 
pulse:— or,  as  we  say  in  mechanics,  action  and  reaction, 
were  equal.  Did  Christianity  encounter  the  rigid,  punc- 
tilious, and  self-righteous  pietism  of  the  Jew?  In  the 
collision  the  Judaism  of  those  who,  of  the  Hebrew  race, 
embraced  the  gospel,  gave  way  to  some  extent,  and  was 
Christianized;  and,  in  return,  Christianity  at  large  was 
Judaized.  Or,  did  it  meet  the  vain  philosophy  and  Pla- 
tonism  of  the  speculative  Greek?  it  did  so;^  and  Platon- 
ism  and  Christianity  thenceforward  were  intimately  com- 
mingled. Did  it  impinge  upon  human  society,  then 
debauched  in  a  most  extraordinary  degree?  it  did  so,  and, 
with  a  violent  revulsion,  it  distorted  its  own  principles 
of  virtue,  in  an  equally  extreme  degree.  Finally,  did 
Ihe  religion  of  the  New  Testament,  rational,  spiritual, 
pure,  confront  the  degrading  superstitions  of  the  pagan 
world?  it  did  so,  and  on  this  ground,  whil>e  it  bore  a 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH,  287 

clear  testimony  against  the  doctrine  and  the  flagitious 
practices  of  polytheism,  yet  merged  itself  in  the  bound- 
less superstition  of  the  times,  as  a  system  of  fear,  spi- 
ritual servitude,  formality,  scrupulosity,  visible  magnifi- 
cence of  worship,  mystery,  artifice,  and  juggle.  Such 
were  the  antagonist  principles,  in  contending  with  each 
of  which  the  holy  religion  of  Christ  triumphed  in  each 
instance,  and  in  each  was  trampled  upon;  conquered  and 
was  conquered; — diffused  light  and  health,  and  admitted 
darkness  and  corruption. 

Nevertheless  its  utter  extinction  was  prevented: — the 
external  means  of  its  regeneration  were  preserved,  and 
the  times  of  regeneration  actually  came.  Forgetting  the 
things  that  were  behind,  and  returning  once  again  to  the 
long  buried  scriptures,  the  church  has  regained  its  vitality; 
and,  amid  a  thousand  errors,  lives,  and  prepares  herself 
to  occupy  the  world,  for  her  Lord. 

But  if  there  be  only  the  most  general  verisimilitude  in 
the  representations  above  given,  in  what  light  are  we  to 
view  the  incredibly  strange  endeavour  to  bring  back, 
upon  the  modern  and  revived  church,  the  very  notions 
and  practices  that  were  the  consequences  of  the  struggles 
of  the  ancient  church  with  its  antagonists?  Shall  we 
then  indeed  be  led  to  reverence  and  imitate  the  very  ar- 
ticles that  are  to  be  pointed  out  to  as  marking  the  admix- 
ture of  Christianity  with  Judaism — with  Greek  philo- 
sophy— with  pagan  corruption — and  w^ith  polytheistic 
superstition?  Shall  we  part  from  our  religion,  as  we 
find  it  fixed  in  the  scriptures,  and  madly  follow  it,  in  its 
first  fearful  plunge  into  the  bottomless  gulf  of  spiritual 
darkness  and  moral  pollution?  If  the  phrase — Christian 
antiquity,  can  be  allowed  to  convey  no  idea  of  pre-emi- 
nence beyond  what  the  strict  rules  of  historical  logic  may, 


188  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION 

under  all  the  circumstances,  allow  to  it,  then,  manifestly, 
the  inexperienced  and  convulsive  straggles  of  the  infant 
religion  with  its  formidable  foes,  how  well  soever  they 
may  merit  our  admiration,  are  less  likely  than  almost 
any  other  cycle  of  religious  events,  to  secure  our  cool 
approval,  or  to  command  our  submission,  as  if  then  a 
pattern  of  wisdom  and  order  were  to  be  given  to  the 
church  of  all  ages. 

A  religious  mind,  after  having  contemplated  the 
changing  scene  of  human  error  and  folly,  from  age  to 
age,  and  after  admitting,  for  awhile,  some  painful  sen- 
timents of  reprehension,  in  thinking  of  the  authors  and 
promoters  of  such  errors,  gladly  turns,  first,  to  those 
many  circumstances  of  extenuation  which  may  be  ad- 
vanced in  behalf  of  these  mistaken  men,  and  which  shall 
allow  us,  notwithstanding,  to  think  of  many  of  them  as 
brethren  in  Christ.  But  then,  such  a  mind  seeks  a  far- 
ther solace,  in  tracing,  dimly  perhaps,  the  apparent  pur- 
poses of  Him  who,  even  when  most  he  allows  evil  to 
have  its  course,  yet  sways  the  general  movement,  and 
urges  forward  still  the  development  of  his  mighty  scheme 
of  universal  government.  A  religious  mind  holds  to  the 
belief  that  He  who  worketh,  in  all  things,  according  to 
the  counsel  of  his  own  will,  has,  in  every  age,  been 
evolving  a  settled  plan;  whether  or  not  it  may  be  intel- 
ligible to  the  human  mind. 

Now,  in  this  belief,  we  are  led  at  once  to  look,  if  not 
with  more  complacency,  at  least  with  less  distress,  upon 
particular  forms  of  what  we  must  still  regard  as  capi- 
tal error,  and  to  think  of  them  as,  in  some  way,  tempo- 
rary adaptations  of  truth  to  the  circumstances  of  man- 
kind at  such  or  such  a  period:  in  this  light  considered, 
the  sharpness  of  our  displeasure  is  a  little  broken  down, 
and  our  stern  condemnation  tempered.     There  is  a  real, 


OF  THE  ANCIENT  CHURCH.  189 

and,  as  I  think,  a  legitimate  consolation  to  be  derived 
from  considerations  of  this  sort.  But  then  tlie  very 
principle  whence  it  is  derived,  namely,  that  the  Lord  has 
been  giving  place  to  accommodations,  or  appliances  of 
this  sort,  from  age  to  age,  thereby  effecting  a  slow,  and 
often  retarded  progression,  in  advancing  the  religious 
condition  of  mankind,  this  principle,  I  say,  implies  an 
unutterable  absurdity  in  the  endeavour,  made  at  any  ad- 
vanced period  of  the  great  scheme,  to  revert  to  a  posi- 
tion long  ago  passed  by  and  obsolete. 

If  we  comfort  ourselves  with  the  thought  that  a  vast 
scheme  has  been,  from  the  first,  in  movement,  the  end 
of  whick  shall  be  the  universal  triumph  of  truth  and 
peace,  then  must  we  be  thinking  of  any  thing  rather 
than  of  a  turning  back  upon  the  great  road  of  the  church's 
progress,  and  of  forfeiting  the  toils  of  centuries;  or,  in 
other  words,  of  rendering  ourselves,  by  imitation,  such 
as  that  which,  when  it  actually  existed,  was  but  a  low 
alloy  of  truth,  permitted  or  winked  at  for  awhile.  And 
if,  in  any  sense,  we  allow  ourselves  to  be  called  pro- 
testants,  our  profession  must  imply  the  acknowledg- 
ment that  the  great  scheme  of  religious  development  has, 
during  the  last  three  centuries,  made  a  conspicuous  de- 
monstration, and  has  set  us  forward  far,  very  far,  in  ad- 
vance of  the  position  occupied  by  our  predecessors  of 
the  fourteenth  century.  Who  must  not  acknowledge  this? 
What  impiety  to  deny  it! 

And  what  have  been  the  characteristics  of  this  alleged 
modern  advancement?  Not  the  devising  of  novelties  in 
religion,  as  something  that  might  be  added  to  the  apos- 
tolic model;  not  the  boldly  taking  the  scriptures  in  hand, 
with  the  endeavour  to  cut  them  down  to  our  liking,  or 
to  cast  them  in  the  mould  of  our  modern  philosophy. 
This  has  not  been  the  course  we  have  taken ;  but  the 
17 


190  A  TEST  OF  THE  MORAL  CONDITION,  <fec. 

very  reverse,  namely,  an  intent  reference  to  the  apos« 
tolic  authority,  in  all  things,  and  an  almost  overwrought 
anxiety  to  know  and  to  imbody  the  very  form  of  apos- 
tolic Christianity.  Whereas  now,  such  being  the  cha- 
racter and  specific  quality  of  the  course  of  events  in  the 
church,  in  modern  limes,  the  character  and  the  quality 
of  the  course  of  events  in  the  ancient  church  was  the 
very  contrary;  namely,  a  perpetual  superposition  of  ma- 
terials upon  the  apostolic  foundation,  at  the  capricious 
bidding  of  superstition,  enthusiasm,  fanaticism,  spiritual 
tyranny,  craft,  and  hypocrisy:  such,  I  say,  being,  when 
the  two  periods  are  broadly  regarded,  the  distinctive 
and  contrasted  features  of  each,  no  powers  of  language 
come  to  one's  aid  when  one  would  fain  express  the 
sense  one  has  of  the  folly  of  the  endeavour,  to  say 
nothing  of  its  audacity,  to  induce  the  church  to  relin- 
quish its  own  hopeful  characteristic,  and  to  put  on  that 
of  the  long  gone-by  period  of  ignorance,  decay,  dehisiont 
The  Lord  himself  disappoint  any  such  mad  attemptl 


NOTE. 

Lest  it  should  be  thought  that  in  afTirming  pp.  31  and  184,  the 
Nicene  church  to  have  been  the  mark  at  which  our  EnjrHsh  re- 
formers ahued,  and  the  model  of  our  church  polity,  I  subjoin  an 
extract  from  Brett,  who  is  adduced  by  the  Oxford  Tract  writers 
among  their  witnesses  to  the  soundness  of  their  principles,  and 
as  speaking  the  sense  of  the  English  church. 

"  As  the  church  never  was  so  strictly  and  firmly  united  as  in 
the  primitive  times,  and  particularly  about  the  time  when  the 
Council  of  Nice  was  celebrated;  so,  if  ever  the  church  be  as 
firmly  united  again,  it  must  be  upon  the  same  principles  and 
practices.  The  church  never  was  united  but  upon  the  principles 
and  usages  which  obtained  at  the  time  of  the  Nicene  Council;, 
and  we  have,  therefore,  good  reason  to  believe  that  it  never  can. 
be  united  but  upon  those  principles  aiid  usages." 


INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENTS. 


The  course  of  argument  open  before  us,  in  the  pre- 
sent instance,  is  straightforward,  and  the  inference  it  in- 
volves is  clear  and  conclusive.  I  have  undertaken  to 
show,  by  numerous  and  varied  citations,  not  merely  that 
the  doctrine  and  practice  of  religious  celibacy  occupied 
a  prominent  place  in  the  theological  and  ecclesiastical 
system  of  the  Nicene  church,  a  fact  hardly  needing  to 
be  proved,  but  that  the  institute  was  intimately  and  in- 
separably connected  with,  and  that  it  powerfully  affected, 
every  other  element  of  ancient  Christianity,  whether 
dogmatic,  ethical,  ritual,  or  hierarchical.  If,  then,  such 
a  connexion  can  be  proved  to  have  existed,  we  must 
either  adopt  its  notions  and  usages  in  this  essential  par- 
ticular, or  must  surrender  very  much  of  our  veneration 
for  ancient  Christianity. 

The  fact  of  the  intimate  connexion  here  affirmed  iS' 
really  not  less  obvious  or  easily  established  than  that  of 
the  mere  existence  of  the  institute  itself.  Modern  church 
\vrilers  may,  indeed,  have  thrown  the  unpleasing  subject 
into  tlie  back-ground,  and  so  it  may  have  attracted  much 
less  attention  than  its  importance  deserves;  but  we  no 
sooner  open  the  patristic  folios  than  we  find  it  confront- 
ing us,  on  almost  every  page;  and  if  either  the  general 
averment  were  questioned,  or  the  bearing  of  the  celibate 
upon  every  part  of  ancient  Christianity  were  denied,  vo- 
lumes might  be  filled  with  the  proofs  that  attest  the  one 
as  well  as  the  other.     Both  these  facts  must  be  admitted 


192  INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENTS. 

by  all  unprejudiced  inquirers  who  shall  take  the  pains  to 
look  into  the  extant  remains  of  Christian  antiquity. 

But  of  what  sort,  then,  was  the  influence  which  flo\yed 
from  the  notions  and  usages  of  the  ancient  celibacy? 
Was  it  beneficial  and  salubrious,  or  pernicious;  or  was 
it  neither  the  one  nor  the  other — an  innoxious  ingredi- 
ent, which  might  have  been  withdrawn  without  either 
sensible  advantage  or  serious  detriment?  This  question 
we  have  the  means  of  bringing  to  a  satisfactory  conclu- 
sion; or  even  if  the  present  writer  should  fail  to  effect  as 
much  as  he  has  undertaken,  some  other,  more  compe- 
tent to  the  task,  would  not  fail  to  discern,  and  to  make 
good  use  of,  so  obvious  an  occasion  for  winning  a  signal 
triumph  in  a  controversy  of  the  highest  moment. 

There  are  those  who  are  now  telling  the  Christian 
world  (in  so  many  words,  as  well  as  by  frequent  impli- 
cations) that  the  doctrine  and  discipline  which  were  pro- 
mulgated in  a  crude  form  by  the  apostles,  reached  a  ma- 
ture state  about  the  time  of  the  council  of  Nice;  and  that 
it  is  in  the  writings  of  the  great  divines  of  that  age  that 
we  are  to  look  for  the  finished  model  of  our  religion.  It 
is,  as  I  think,  a  most  auspicious  circumstance  that  those 
who  entertain  a  belief  such  as  this,  have  done  themselves 
the  honour,  and  the  church  at  large  the  service,  of 
making  themselves  so  clearly  understood;  and  that  thus 
a  multifarious  controversy  is  reduced  within  narrow  li- 
mits, and  is  submitted  to  ihe  rules  of  a  plain  historical 
inquiry.  Only  let  the  Oxford  writers  adhere  to  this  pro- 
fession of  their  faith,  and  we  may  hope  to  see  the  con- 
troversy reach  its  issue  at  no  distant  period. 

But  then  these  same  writers  will  feel  themselves  com- 
pelled to  dispose  of  the  critical  subject  of  the  ancient 
celibacy  in  some  more  definite  manner  than  can  be  ef- 
fected by  the  means  of  a  few  timid  and  ambiguous  allu- 


INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENTS.  193 

sions  to  it;  for  it  will  not  long  be  permitted  to  the  cham- 
pions and  admirers  of  ancient  Christianity  to  evade  a 
theme  which  touches,  at  a  hundred  points,  the  general 
scheme  of  doctrines  and  practices  they  are  labouring  to 
recommend.  These  divines  cannot  but  feel  that  the 
credit  so  generally  given  them  for  religious  integrity  as 
ministers  of  the  gospel,  and  for  honourable  ingenuous- 
ness as  controvertists,  imposes  upon  them  the  necessity 
of  frankly  stating  what  their  belief  is  on  this  cardinal 
point. 

Either  the  ancient  celibacy,  with  its  allied  asceticism, 
was  abstractedly  good,  and  its  influence  was  holy  and 
elevating;  or  the  reverse  was  true;  or  it  was  neither  the 
one  nor  the  other,  and  altogether  indifferent;  or  it  was 
partly  beneficial,  and  partly  pernicious.  Something  de- 
linile  must  needs  be  said  on  the  subject,  and  a  choice 
must  be  made  among  these  suppositions,  before  we  can 
be  free  either  to  accept,  or  to  reject,  the  Nicene  model 
of  Christianity.  As  well  attempt  to  recommend  Maho- 
met's scheme  of  religion,  and  yet  say  nothing  of  his 
doctrine  of  paradise,  as  go  about  to  restore  ancient 
Christianity,  leaving  in  the  shade — its  celibate  and  its 
monkery. 

Tiie  Oxford  Tract  writers  have,  no  doubt,  maturely 
considered  this  untoward  subject,  and  will  in  due  time 
declare  themselves  plainly  concerning  it;  nor  does  it  ap- 
pear how  they  can  do  otherwise  than  boldly  take  up  the 
only  position  which  their  pledged  adherence  to  the  Ni- 
cene church  leaves  open  to  them,  and  toward  which  in- 
deed they  have  already  opened  the  way.*     Mean  while 

*  Dr.  Pusey's  Letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Oxford,  assumes,  as  I 
shall  hereafter  show,  the  very  ground  on  which  the  ancient  celi- 
bacy rested. 

17* 


194  INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENTS. 

I  invite  the  reader's  attention  to  a  mass  and  series  of 
proofs  which,  as  I  think,  must  exclude  every  supposi- 
tion but  one,  concerning  the  influence  of  the  notions  in 
question,  and  the  real  quality  of  the  religious  and  eccle- 
siastical system  to  which  they  attached. 

The  actual  influence  of  particular  religious  opinions 
or  practices,  is  not  always  found  to  be  such  as,  at  a  first 
glance,  we  might  have  expected:  often  it  is  the  very  re- 
verse; and  when,  at  length,  we  discover  the  error  into 
which  we  had  fallen,  we  are  not  unlikely  to  admit,  too 
hastily,  a  favourable  impression  of  lliat  which  we  per- 
ceive not  to  have  produced  the  sort  of  bad  consequences 
we  had  hitherto  attributed  to  it.  This  is  a  pitfall  always 
to  be  kept  in  view.  Multitudes  have  relapsed  into  pope- 
ry, and  not  a  few  have  fallen  into  Socinianism,  simply 
because,  in  becoming  better  acquainted  with  the  one  or 
the  other,  their  original  and  vague  notions  concerning  it 
had  not  been  realized. 

With  the  hope  then  of  precluding  any  such  accident 
in  the  present  instance,  and  also,  in  order  to  exhibit,  as 
plainly  as  possible,  what  I  mean  by  tlie  diffused  and  oc- 
cult influence  whicli  an  opinion  or  practice  may  extend 
over  the  system  it  belongs  to,  I  will  adduce  what  may 
seem  an  extreme  example,  and  yet  it  is  a  pertinent  one. 

— Let  it  be  supposed  then  that  v.e  have  in  view  some 
religious  national  system  of  which  the  practice  of  infanti- 
cide is  a  part,  and  is  not  merely  tolerated,  but  authorized, 
and  encouraged,  commended,  extolled,  and  practised. 
Now  none  can  imagine  that  such  a  doctrine,  and  such  a 
practice,  would  be  found  to  have  taken  no  hold  of  a  peo- 
ple's manners  and  sentiments;  rather  we  should  be  in- 
clined, without  hesitation  or  due  inquiry,  to  attribute  a 
gross  and  savage  ferocity  to  a  community  disgraced  by 
so  foul  a  stain.     But  herein  we  might  find  ourselves  al- 


INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENTS.  195 

togellier  in  error,  and  perhaps,  when  actually  convinced 
of  our  mistake,  we  might  almost  begin  to  ask  if  the 
practice  itself  were  really  so  abominable  as  we  had  been 
used  to  think  it. 

But  a  better  informed,  and  a  more  cautious  inquirer, 
adhering  steadily  to  the  immoveable  principles  of  morali- 
ty, nor  ever  skeptical  concerning  the  constant  elements 
of  human  nature,  would  patiently  look  about,  or  would 
look  more  narrowly  into  the  system,  and  beneath  its 
surface,  for  what  he  must  at  length  discover, — namely, 
the  deep  working,  and  the  universally  diffused  poison, 
of  this  horrid  usage.  How  lofty  soever,  in  style  and 
mien,  such  a  people  may  seem,  and  whatever  heroism 
may  have  often  connected  itself  with  the  atrocious  prac- 
tice, yet  the  philosophical  moralist,  sure  of  his  princi- 
ples, will  go  on  with  his  analysis  of  the  people's  senti- 
ments and  condition,  until  he  has  laid  bare  the  ulcer  that 
is  at  their  heart. 

And  such  an  analysis  would,  in  the  end,  make  it  cer- 
tain, that  there  was  no  single  opinion,  however  appa- 
rently insulated,  no  characteristic  of  the  national  temper, 
no  element  of  the  private  and  domestic  economy,  actu- 
ally exempt  from  the  contamination  of  this  cancerous 
tumour.  Within  this  infanticide-community  mothers 
might  perhaps  exhibit  the  highest  intensity  of  the  pa- 
rental affection,  and  might  be  seen,  to-day  submitting  to 
the  most  extreme  privations  for  the  sake  of  the  very 
babe  which,  to-morrow,  they  will  coolly  offer  to  the 
murderous  knife  of  a  fanatical  priest.  There  might  seem 
to  be  no  want  of  moral  energy  among  such  a  people; 
and  yet  assuredly  there  would  be  a  total  want  of  genu- 
ine virtue:  and  if  their  morals  were  vitiated  and  extra- 
vagant, of  what  sort  would  be  their  religion?  Nothing 
better,  we  may  be  certain,  than  a  grim  demonology — a 


196  INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENTS. 

worship,  not  of  the  author  of  the  human  system,  but  of 
its  destroyer. 

Whenever  a  religious  practice,  plainly  interfering  with 
liie  common  principles  of  human  nature,  is  not  found  to 
be  such,  in  its  immediate  influence,  as  we  might  have 
supposed,  it  will  be  because  itself  springs  from  some 
much  deeper  or  higlier  principle,  touching  the  human 
mind  more  profoundly,  and  therefore,  in  so  far  as  it  has 
its  origin  more  toward  the  centre,  it  affects  every  thing 
else  in  tlui  lieart,  temper,  beliaviour,  and  understanding. 
In  such  a  case  then,  the  particular  practice  in  question 
may  either  be  assumed  as  a  general  characteristic  of  tlie 
moral  system  of  which  it  is  a  part,  or  it  may  be  em- 
ployed more  exactly,  as  a  clue,  serving  us  when  we 
would  make  our  way  through  the  intricacies  of  that  sys- 
tem. 

It  is  precisely  thus  with  the  celibacy  of  the  ancient 
church:  far  loo  deeply  did  it  touch  the  most  potent  im- 
pulses of  human  r.ature  to  be  in  itself  of  small  account. 
Whaiever  Iiad  the  power  so  to  thwart  and  trample  upon 
the  animal  and  moral  constitution,  had  a  power  too,  to 
disturb  every  thing  else  within  the  bosom,  or  the  mind 
of  man;  nor  could  it  fail  to  exert  this  power.  It  were 
idle  to  speak  of  one  who  goes  about  with  iron  spikes  in  his 
shoes,  or  with  a  festering  hook  in  his  ribs,  as  if  he  were, 
in  other  respects,  just  like  his  fellows;  or  as  if  he  could 
retain  his  hold  of  the  common  principles  of  good  sense, 
and  of  the  gentle  domestic  afl'eclions: — such  a  being  is 
not  in  truth  a  man.  The  fakir  may  smile,  and  talk  soft- 
ly, but  all  his  notions  and  feelings  are  such  as  are  burned 
into  the  soul  by  the  indwelling  of  a  fiend.  Whatever 
it  is,  whether  doctrine  or  social  usage,  that  lords  it  over 
our  physical  and  moral  constitution,  will  be  sure  to  play 
the  masler  among  things  so  much  more  flimsy  and  piia- 


INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENTS.  197 

ble  as  are  theological  dogmas  and  ecclesiastical  constitu- 
tions. What!  shall  a  man's  heart  be  grasped,  and 
wrenched,  and  torn  out  of  its  place  by  a  force  which  yet 
will  not,  or  cannot  mould  and  twist  the  fleeting  creations 
of  the  brain?  This  will  never  happen,  or  never  if  the 
laws  of  moral  and  intellectual  dynamics  are  at  all  to  be 
calculated  upon.  Craze  a  man  in  his  affections,  and  you 
need  not  set  about  to  craze  him  in  his  understanding;  for 
it  is  done  already.  Such  a  one  sees  every  thing  in  false 
proportions,  misjudges  all  magnitudes,  misplaces  the 
major  and  minor  of  every  proposition,  and  has  become 
a  universal  sophist,  not  indeed  by  ill  intention,  or  want 
of  reason;  but  by  the  cruel  misfortune  that  has  disjointed 
his  moral  symmetry. 

This  is  felt  by  every  sound-minded  reader  in  looking 
into  the  ancient  church  writers: — it  is  not  an  error  in  one 
place,  and  an  inconclusive  argument  in  another;  but  it  is 
generally  a  distorted  condition  of  the  moral  and  religious 
nature:  every  thing  is  as  if  it  had  been  on  the  rack. 
Often  one  is  perplexed  in  the  endeavour  to  trace  to  its 
true  cause  this  derangement  of  notions,  of  which,  never- 
theless, one  is  constantly  and  painfully  conscious;  but  on 
such  occasions  it  is  seldom  that  the  mystery  is  not  cleared 
up  by  a  recurrence  to  the  leading  f^ict  of  the  terrible  vio- 
lence that  had  been  done  to  human  nature  by  the  ascetic 
system.  Here  is  the  fatal  secret  of  very  many  of  the 
illusions,  and  the  exaggerations,  and  the  corruptions,  of 
ancient  Christianity. 

The  instance  I  have  just  adduced,  by  the  way  of  illus- 
tration, namely,  the  practice  of  infanticide,  I  have  ad- 
mitted to  be  an  extreme  one;  and  it  is  so  if  we  think  of 
its  direct  criminality,  as  compared  with  the  vow  of  vir- 
ginity. But  in  any  other  point  of  view,  it  is  by  no 
means  extreme;  and  I  think  that  those  who  are  the  best 


198  INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENTS. 

acquainted  with  human  nature,  will  be  ready  to  admit 
that  the  one  practice  indicates  the  presence  of  as  great 
a  poiver  of  disturbance  (to  borrow  a  phrase)  as  does  the 
other.  In  other  words,  that  the  practice  of  celibacy  im- 
plies as  profound,  and  extensive  a  derangement  of  the 
mora!  system,  as  does  the  practice  of  infanticide: — the 
sino^le  act  was  indeed  more  flagitious;  but  the  motive 
prompting  it  was  not  of  a  more  sovereign  kind,  nor  less 
likely  to  shed  its  influence  far  and  wide. 

Now  whatever  recommendations  of  fervour  or  of  se- 
raphic heroism  might  be  found  to  attach  to  a  communi- 
ty practising  infanticide,  on  pretext  of  religion,  it  is  not 
conceivable  that  we  should  ever  consent  to  go  to  such  a 
society  to  be  schooled,  either  in  theology,  or  in  morals, 
or  that  we  should  think  it  safe  to  borrow  from  so  tainted 
a  source  any  order  of  sentiments;  for  we  should  feel  that, 
whether  or  not  the  poison  had  always  broke  out  on  the 
surface,  every  thing  tlience  derived  must,  in  fact,  be  lia- 
ble to  the  gravest  suspicions.  But  the  same  caution 
ought  not  the  less  to  be  regarded  when  it  is  proposed, 
as  now,  by  the  Oxford  divines,  to  borrow  largely  and 
freely  from  the  plague-stricken  Nicene  clmrch.  What 
can  be  more  unsafe  than  to  listen  submissively  to  those 
who,  themselves,  had  undergone  the  moral  and  the  the- 
ological mischief,  or  violence,  connected  with  the  celi- 
bate doctrine  and  practice — which  practice  had  already 
become  loaded  with  the  most  extreme  and  oiTensive 
abuses!  If  we  dare  not  take  lessons  from  teachers  ap- 
plauding and  practising  infanticide,  how  is  it  that  we  can 
dare  to  listen  to  those  who  applauded  and  practised  a 
custom  which,  though  not  in  the  same  sense  a  crime, 
could  not  have  become  general,  without  involving  an 
equal,  or  even  a  greater  distortion  both  of  natural  senti- 
ments and  of  theoretic  principles? 


INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENTS.  199 

The  real  history  of  the  ancient  church  (I  do  not  mean 
so  much  of  this  history  as  may  meet  the  eye  in  modern 
works)  plainly  shows,  not  only  that  the  worst  enormi- 
ties (sometimes)  and  the  wildest  extravagances  (often) 
attached  to  the  ascetic  life,  but  also,  and  which  is  a  fact 
of  more  significance,  that  dogmas  and  modes  of  devo- 
tional sentiment  fitting  such  excesses,  were  adopted,  or 
were  fallen  into,  by  even  the  wisest  and  best  of  the  the- 
ologians of  the  times.  What  violence  then  must  be  done 
to  every  known  principle  of  analogy,  in  the  moral  world, 
if,  after  all,  it  is  to  be  believed  that  the  Nicene  cluirch 
had  reached,  in  doctrine,  in  ritual,  in  discipline,  and  in 
devotional  temper,  just  that  palmy  state,  bordering  on 
absolute  perfection,  which  should  render  it  the  proper 
object  of  our  veneration  and  imitation!  What  may  not 
be  true  if  this  be  true? 

But  even  if  so  utterly  incredible  a  supposition  were 
admitted,  we  should  not  have  made  our  way  through  the 
difficulties  of  the  case,  and  these  are  to  be  surmounted 
only  by  a  procedure  from  which,  as  I  suppose,  all  but  a 
very  few  would  recoil  with  horror.  It  is  well  to  look 
these  farther  difficulties  fully  in  the  face. — The  Nicene 
church-system  was  one  system,  firmly  compacted,  com- 
pacted by  energies,  within,  and  by  pressure  from  with- 
out: nothing  hung  loose  upon  it;  nothing  was  out  of  har- 
mony within  it.  We  totally  deceive  ourselves  if,  carry^ 
ing  our  modern  notions  up  to  those  ages,  we  think  that 
the  Christian  community  in  the  fourth  century  was  like 
the  modern  religious  mass— a  lieterogeneous  aggregate, 
owing  submission  to  no  central  power,  wrought  upon 
from  within,  and  from  without,  by  a  thousand  forces, 
wholly  independent  one  of  the  other,  giving  the  freest 
scope  to  individual  impulses,  and  therefore  presenting 


200 


[NTRODUCTORY  STATEMENTS. 


many  glaring  instances  of  anomaly,  and  contrariety. 
The  ancient  church  wore  no  such  many-coloured  cloakf 
and  how  much  soever  it  might  be  distracted  by  parti- 
cular controversies,  it  was  very  nearly  of  one  temper, 
as  to  its  moral  ingredients,  'i'his  assertion  might  receive 
curious  illustration  by  a  collation  of  the  style  of  men 
the  most  opposed  on  points  of  theology.  But  it  must 
suffice  here  to  advert  to  the  fact,  which  will  not  be  dis- 
puted, of  the  homogeneity  of  the  religious  system,  with- 
in the  boundaries  of  the  orthodox  church,  to  say  no 
more.  What  then  is  the  practical  inference  thence  re- 
sulting? Plainly  this,  that,  if  we  go  a  borrowing  from 
this  Nicene  church,  piece-meal,  taking  out  of  it  what 
we  may  fancy,  and  leaving  behind  that  which  in  fact 
was  woven  with  it,  and  formed  one  texture,  we  shall 
come  off  miserably  disappointed  in  the  result;  for  what 
we  have  obtained  is  not,  in  fact,  what  we  were  grasp- 
ing at. 

As  well  append  an  amputated  limb  to  a  living  body,  as 
attempt  to  set  certain  detached  portions  of  ancient  Chris- 
tianity agoing,  in  combination  with  our  modern  church 
notions  and  practices.  What  we  have  adopted  will  pu- 
trefy, but  it  will  not  walk.  Yielding  ourselves  to  a  fond 
veneration  of  antiquity,  we  may  ape  the  sanctimonious 
carriage  of  the  Nicene  age,  we  may  imitate,  and  punctili- 
ously enact,  the  sacramental  superstitions,  as  got  up  in  the 
porphyry-columned  basilics  of  Constantinople,  Antioch, 
and  Rome;  we  may  talk  in  the  big  phrases  of  Chrysostom, 
Gregory,  and  Ambrose,  of  the  "  tremendous  mysteries" 
of  the  church,  and  may  exhaust  all  powers  of  language 
in  setting  forth  the  efficacy  and  dignity  of  the  sacerdo- 
tal functions: — we  may  strut  and  swell,  we  may  rave, 
or  be  sullen,  as  we  please;  but  all  will  not  do — our  copy 


INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENTS.  20 1 

indeed  is  perfect  to  a  hair,  but  there  is  no  life  or  mo- 
tion in  it.  The  Nicene  church,  with  its  pomps  and  aw- 
ful rites,  embraced  a  mystery,  tremendous  indeed — a 
motive  and  a  doctrine  which,  after  trampling,  in  tyran- 
nous mockery,  upon  the  most  potent  forces  of  human 
nature,  lent  its  superfluous  power  to  wliatever  else  might 
seem  to  need  animation  or  support. 

Idle  then  is  the  industry  of  our  modern  restorers  of 
antiquity,  who  are  copying  the  Nicene  church,  but  yet 
scruple  (or  scruple  at  present)  to  adopt  the  master  ele- 
ment of  the  system — tlie  heart  of  the  body — the  key- 
stone of  the  arch,  the  cement  of  the  structure.  Tlie 
Romish  copyist<.knew  far  better  what  they  were  about, 
and  their  imitation  of  antiquity  has  stood  on  its  feet, 
and  spoken,  and  gone  about,  and  wrought  its  will,  like 
a  living  body:  the  Romish  represeniation  of  ancient 
Christianity  is  a  dauohter — too  like  her  mother  to  allow 
her  filial  relationship  to  be  for  a  moment  qiiestioni^l;  but 
what  is  now  in  course  of  finishing,  within  our  protes- 
tant  church,  is  nothing  better  than  a  wax  model,  which 
although  it  startles  us  when  we  come  upon  it^  unpre- 
pared, chills  us  wiien  we  touch  it,  and  from  which  we 
presently  turn  away  in  contempt. 

Marvellously  indeed  have  those  shown  their  ignorance 
of  human  nature,  who  have  allowed  themselves  to  think 
of  the  ancient  celibacy  and  its  asceticism^  as  if  they  were 
separable  adjuncts  of  ancient  Christianity;  and  strangely 
too  have  they  overlooked  the  entire  evidence  of  histo- 
ry. The  philosophy  of  morals  apart,  how  cy.n  we  be 
justified  in  assuming  those  things  to  have  been  loosely  or 
accidentally  conjoined,  which,  in  fact,  never  existed  apart 
for  so  long  a  time  as  one  year,  or  one  day,  and  were 
never  sundered  i'rt  any  one  church,  and  which  never 
18 


202 


INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENTS. 


came  lo  be  p:ir(rc]  until  the  lime  when  the  apostoh'c  prin- 
ciple of  morals,  which   had  been   so  long  superseded, 
I      was  recovered,  and  proniulgateil  anew?     Let  the  "  well- 
'      omened"  enterprise  of  the  Oxford  divines  (so  far  as  at 
present  developed)  be  crowned  with  all  the  success  they 
can  desire,  let  the  episcopal  clergy  generally,  or  univer- 
sally (whirh  God   forbid)  yield  themselves  to  the  fo?ul 
illusion,  hn  the  English  church  be  hoisted  up  to  the  high 
mark  of  Nicene  perfection,  and,  in  order  to  make  the 
exj)eriment  as  complete  as  possible,  let  it  repel  from  it- 
self so  much  of  the   interference  of  the  civil  power  as 
distinguishes  the  Enoli.sh  church  under  the  Tudors,  from 
the  eastern  church  un.hM-  Constantine,  or  Theodosius; 
all  this  eO'ected,  and   the  first  Hush  of  triumphant  feel- 
ings subsided,  and  then  every  one   would  become  con- 
scious (if  a  want— a  I'auli,  v.  hicji  some  would  not  hesitate 
to  name;  and  there  would  be  a  general  outcry  for  the  de- 
ficient element  of  ancient- Christianity;  and  a  few  months 
would  see  the  "  holy  virginity"  of  the  Nicene  age,  freed 
indeed   from   its  grosser  scandals,  and  sobered  down  a 
little  by  English  good  sense,  fairly  set  a-going  among  us, 
;'.nd  crowds,  of  both  sexes,  high-wrought  bv  this  fresh 
and    specious    enthusiasm,    would    profess    themselves 
"  the  espoused  of  the  Lord."     That  such  things  should 
come  about,  even  in  tliis  country,  and  this  age,  I  cannot 
think   in  any  degree   improbable. — But  are  we  indeed 
prepared  to  hail  them? 

Ue^^ides  tlie  vehement  propensity  of  all  things  to  reach 
their  deep  and  true  allinilies,  there  is  a  very  obvious  ten- 
dency in  t!ie  superstitious  Iteling  and  doctrine  concern- 
ing the  sacraments,  to  bring  about  the  restoration  of  the 
celibate.  If  certain  imaginative  notions  of  sacredness 
and  sanctity  arc   luit  once  well  lodged   in   many  minds. 


INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENTS.  203 

and  especially  in  delicately  sensitive  minds,  there  comes 
in,  at  the  same  time,  or  it  will  soon  develope  itself,  an 
instinctive  necessity  for  carrying  them  out  in  all  direc- 
tions; and  in  fact,  until  these  morbid  notions  are  so  car- 
ried out,  the  conscience  is  troubled,  and  the  moral  senti- 
ments are  kept  on  the  rack,  or  are  exposed  to  frequent 
and  cruel  shocks.  There  would  not  long  be  wanting 
some  tender  and  devout  spirits,  nor  some  of  more  fana- 
tical temper,  who  would  denounce,  as  insufferable,  the 
desecration  of"  Holy  Baptism,"  and  of  the  "  Holy  Eu- 
charist," by  the  hands  of  a  married  priest.  Many,  and 
among  these,  some  of  the  most  exemplary  members  of 
the  church,  would  declare  that  their  inmost  nature  re- 
volted at  the  thought  of  receiving  the  consecrated  ele- 
ments from  "polluted  hands."  A  married  priest!  shall 
such  a  one  touch  that  altar  whicli  archangels  tremble 
even  to  look  upon!  (as  says  the  blessed  Chrysostom.) 
This  may  not  be:  too  long  indeed  has  the  church,  tram- 
pled on  by  profane  protestantism,  submitted  to  these  de- 
gradations. The  time,  however,  is  now  come  that  she 
should  raise  herself  from  the  dust,  nor  ever  again  per- 
mit her  "  present  Lord  "  to  be  uplifted  by  any  but  hands 
washen  in  innocency,  nor  the  steps  of  her  tremendous 
altar  to  be  trodden  by  any  but  those  whose  "  loins  are 
girt  about  with  truth." 

All  this  has  actually  been  seen  and  heard  in  the  church, 
and  it  will  inevitably  renew  itself  among  ourselves,  if 
only  ancient  Christianity  is  to  be  revived,  and  if  Eng- 
land, abandoned  by  God  for  her  sins,  is  to  shut  up  the 
scriptures,  to  frown  upon  the  gospel,  and  to  take  up,  in 
the  stead  of  it,  the  heartless  "  philosophy  "  of  the  pa- 
tristic folios. 

The  intimate  connexion  then  of  the  celibate  with  alj 


204  INTRODUCTORY  STATE3IENTS. 

parts  of  the  ancient  religious  system,  presents  itself  as 
a  subject  of  urgent  practical  importance,  at  a  time  when 
the  notions,  riles,  and  doctrines,  of  that  system,  are  re^ 
commended  as  imbodying  Cliristianity  in  its  mature  and 
most  perfect  form;  and  wiien,  in  a  word,  the  Nicene 
church  is  solemnly  lifted  up,  as  the  standard  by  wliich 
every  thing  ecclesiastical  should  be  estimated. 

This  alleged  connexion,  fatal  as  it  must  be  held  to  be 
to  the  pretensions  of  ancient  Christianity,  considered  as 
a  MODEL-SYSTEM,  is  not  to  be  exhibited  in  generalities 
merely;  but  must  be  traced  carefully,  and  on  several 
lines  of  inquiry.  This  inquiry  I  am  now  to  pursue,  and 
with  the  hope  of  combining  coniprehensiveness  and  bre- 
vity, with  a  sufficient  degree  of  distinctness  in  the  de- 
tails, shall  arrange  the  evidences  I  iiave  to  adduce  under 
five  heads,  and  shall  consider  the  ancient  religious  ce- 
libacy, and  the  ascetic  practices  therewith  connected,  as 
affecting— 

I.  The  notions  entertained  of  the  Divine  Nature,  or 
the  moral  attributes  of  God — 

II.  The  scheme  of  salvation — its  means  and  end — 

III.  The  system  of  morals,  in  its  principles,  and  ope- 
ration on  the  church  and  society  at  large — 

IV.  The  visible  institutions  of  Christianity,  and  espe- 
cially the  sacraments — and, 

V.  The  ecclesiastical  polity;  and  particularly  the  po- 
sition, influence,  and  temper  of  the  clergy. 

In  order  to  anticipate  any  objection,  bearing  upon  my 
general  argument,  I  must  stale  tiie  principle  which  I 
bind  myself  lo  observe  in  citing  the  evidence  of  writers 
of  different  times,  embracing  a  period  of  four  hundred 
years.— I  assume,  then,  that  the  moment  of  the  Nicene 
council  is  the  centre  point  of  historical  inquiries,  con- 


INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENTS.  205 

cerning  ancient  Christianity.  It  is  so,  first,  because,  by- 
general  acknowledgment,  the  church  was  altogether  at 
that  time  in  a  more  settled  condition  than  at  any  other 
period,  whether  earlier  or  later.  Secondly,  because  we 
are  in  possession  of-  far  more  ample  materials,  relating 
to  that  period,  than  are  extant  belonging  to  any  other, 
earlier  or  later,  and,  therefore,  we  may,  with  more  cer- 
tainty and  satisfaction,  bring  it  under  discussion;  and 
thirdly,  and  especially,  because  this  period  has  been  ex- 
plicitly recognised,  in  the  present  controversy,  as  that 
wherein  was  imbodied  the  pure  ideal  of  doctrine  and  dis- 
cipline, and  which  many  wish  to  consider  as  the  model 
and  standard  of  tlie  English  episcopal  church.  Here, 
tlien,  is  our  resling-piace;  and  in  quoting  earlier  autho- 
rities, it  is  only  just  so  far  as  these  preceding  writers 
may  be  fairly  taken  as  having  laid  the  foundations  of  the 
Nicene  church;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  if  later  doctors 
are  brought  forward,  it  will  be  when  they,  as  plainly, 
are  seen  to  be  completing  the  building,  and  laying  stone 
upon  slone,  after  the  orighial  plan,  and  in  manifest  con- 
formity with  the  mind  and  purpose  of  their  predecessors. 
Thus,  for  example,  if  Origen,  Irensus,  or  the  apostolic 
bishops  are  produced,  it  will  be  so  far  as  they  were  the 
fathers  of  the  Nicene  Christianity;  or,  if  I  come  down 
so  low  as  to  the  limes  of  Gregory  the  Great,  I  shall  ad- 
duce his  evidence,  not  as  the  father  of  popery,  but  as  the 
cliild  and  scholar  of  the  Nicene  doctors. 

In  fact,  I  think  there  are  very  few  points  of  differ- 
ence, distinguishing  the  Nicene  chuich,  from  either  the 
earlier  or  liie  later  church,  within  the  compass  of  two 
hundred  years,  on  either  side,  which  modern  contro- 
vertists,  of  any  class,  would  much  care  to  insist  upon, 
as  of  material  consequem-e  to  their  particular  opinions, 
18^ 


206  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

It  is  well,  however,  to  cast  anchor  at  some  one  point, 
and  manifestly  the  early  years  of  the  fourth  century  af- 
ford the  hardest  bottom  for  this  purpose.  The  extant, 
and  principal,  writers  of  the  period  during  which  Ni- 
cene  Christianity  may  be  considered  as  having  remained 
entire  and  unchanged,  are  barely  so  many  as  twenty. 
The  works,  however,  of  several  of  these  are  voluminous, 
and  they  altogether  furnish  an  amount  of  various  and  ex- 
act information,  concerning  tlie  opinions  and  usages  of 
the  time,  such  as  is  hardly  surpassed  in  copiousness,  or 
exactness,  by  the  historic  materials  of  any  but  the  most 
recent  times.  At  least  it  is  enough  to  exclude  the  ap- 
prehension of  our  being  liable  to  fall  into  any  material 
error,  in  representing,  either  the  notions,  or  the  prac- 
tices, or  the  spiritual  and  moral  characteristics  of  the 
period. 


I.  Connexion  of  the  ancient  celibate  with  the  no- 
tions ENTERTAINED  OF  THE  DIVINE  NATURE. 

It  is  affirmed,  then,  that  the  fundamental  principle  and 
the  practices  of  religious  celibacy  were  at  once  the  pro- 
duct, and  the  ir.dication,  of  certain  notions  concernino- 
the  Divine  Nature,  ahogetiier  unliive  those  conveyed  in 
the  scriptures,  and  which  took  e/Tect  upon  every  other 
element  of  ancient  Christianity. 

Few,  I  suppose,  will  deny  that  a  stanch  orthodoxy 
may  consist,  and  has  often  in  fact  consisted,  not  merely 
with  incidental  errors,  but  with  very  unworthy  and  de- 
lusive conceptions  of  Uie  Divine  Nature.  How  matiy 
vehement  assorlers  of  Athanasian  doctrine  have  appeared 
un  the  stage  of  the  church,  whose  notions  of  the  moral 


WITH  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  207 

attributes  of  God,  or  of  what  (with  reverence)  may  be 
called  the  divine  dispositions,  were  of  no  better  quality 
that  such  as  may  have  been  entertained  by  the  visionaries 
of  the  Ganges,  of  the  Indus,  of  the  Euphrates,  or  of  the 
Nile!  This  fact,  instrnctive  as  it  is,  cannot  escape  the 
notice  of  any  intelligent  reader  of  church  history.  An 
orthodoxy,  logically  precise,  has  served,  with  many  an 
ardent  spirit,  as  the  blind  of  a  most  corrupt  theology; 
and  the  Athanasian  creed  has  been  used  as  a  mantle, 
M'rapping  round  the  illusive  principles  of  the  oriental 
theosophy.  But,  in  such  instances,  and  they  have  been 
very  numerous,  although  the  concealed  error  may  elude 
our  grasp,  while  we  are  in  search  for  it  in  its  dogmatic 
form,  it  never  fails  to  betray  itself,  somewhere,  among 
the  characteristics  of  the  ethical  or  ecclesiastical  system 
of  the  parties  in  question. 

This  is  remarkably  the  case  in  the  instance  now  be- 
fore us;  and  after  we  have  traced  the  Christian  celibate 
institution,  very  satisfactorily,  as  we  may  think,  to  this, 
that,  and  the  other  external  cause,  and  have  pursued  it, 
historically,  up  to  its  several  sources,  when  we  come  to 
institute  a  deeper  inquiry  regarding  its  inner  cause,  or 
primary  motive,  we  have  hardly  advanced  a  step  before 
we  meet  unquestionable  indications  of  its  real  import  as 
a  product  of  that  gnostic  sentiment  which,  even  where 
tlie  gnostic  lieresies  were  the  most  strenuously  resisted, 
held  possession  of  the  religious  mind,  almost  universally, 
along  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  during  a  full 
seven  hundred  years. 

I  here  anticipate  a  brisk  and  resentful  retort  on  the 
part  of  the  champions  of  ancient  Christiamty,  who,  at 
ihe  mere  mention  of  any  such  "  calumnious  insinuation," 
will  triumphantly  appeal  to  the  illustrious  catena  patrum, 


^08  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

who,  from  age  to  age,  stood  as  the  bulwarks  of  the 
faith,  and  gave  their  whole  souls  to  the  work  of  repelling 
the  gnostic  heresiarchs.  The  well-merited  eulogium  of 
these  worthies  on  this  particular  ground,  I  would  be  for- 
ward to  assent  to,  and  to  repeat.  But,  when  this  justice 
has  been  rendered  to  the  anti-gnostic  fathers,  from  Ire- 
nseus  to  Theodoret,  a  more  exact  attention  to  the  facts, 
and  a  more  calm  consideration  of  them,  will  lead  us  to 
admit  the  necessity  of  observing  a  distinction,  often 
overlooked,  between  the  formal  and  zealous  opposition 
which  men  may  make  to  certain  definite  errors,  and  the 
latent  and  unconfessed  entertainment  given  to  the  very 
feelings  out  of  which  those  errors  liave  sprung.  As 
there  is  what  may  be  called  articulate  trutli  and  inarti- 
culate truth,  and  as  multitudes,  no  doubt,  have  been 
saved  by  their  participation  of  the  latter,  who  have  either 
not  known,  or  who  might  even  have  resisted  the  for- 
mer; so  is  it  with  error,  and  with  its  influence  over  the 
mind.  More  than  a  few,  in  every  age,  have  stood  fore- 
most in  the  assault  upon  error,  as  defined  and  broadly 
pronounced  by  heretics,  who,  at  the  same  time,  have  ma- 
nifestly been  themselves  the  victims  of  the  false  senti- 
ment— the  intimate  illusion,  whence  that  error  has  taken 
its  rise.  Thus,  for  example,  in  our  own  times,  has  it 
not  happened,  and,  in  some  signal  instances,  that  the 
assailants  of  skepticism  have  afforded  indications  enough 
of  their  suffering,  themselves,  under  that  ague  of  the 
soul?  1  consider  it,  therefore,  neither  as  a  calumnious 
imputation,  nor  as  a  piiilosophical  refinement,  to  affirm, 
that  the  early  church,  while  employed  in  meritoriously 
and  successfully  repelling  the  proleus  gnosticism  by 
which,  from  the  first,  it  was  beleaguered,  did  itself  ad- 
mit, and  to  a  much  greater  extent  than  has  often  been 


WITH  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  209 

supposed,  a  deep  gnostic  feeling,  which  made  itself  felt 
in  every  branch  of  its  doctrinal  and  ecclesiastical  con- 
stitution. 

Apart  from  an  acquaintance  with  the  history  of  that 
awful  mistress  of  the  ancient  world — the  oriental  the- 
osoPHY  which,  under  a  thousand  changeful  colours,  held 
the  religious  mind  in  thrall  during  a  period  of  two  thou- 
sand years — apart  from  this  history,  we  are  neither  qua- 
lified duly  to  estimate  the  divine  excellence  and  purity 
of  the  Christian  system,  nor  to  render  full  justice  to  the 
orthodox  early  writers  on  account  of  their  resistance  of 
this  captivating  illusion,  nor  can  we  resolve  the  enigma 
of  the  superstitions  which,  even  while  repelling  gnosti- 
cism, the  ancient  church  admitted.     In  this  last  respect, 
especially,  it  is  the  knowledge  of  gnosticism,  not  indeed 
as  a  heresy,  but  as  a  feeling,  and  as  the  "  tyrant  of  the 
cavern" — the  lurking  witchery  of  the  human  spirit,  that 
must  afford  us  the  clue  we  want  in  clearing  a  path  through 
the  labyrinth  of  ancient  Christianity.    It  is  to  this  gnos- 
tic feeling,  preoccupying  all  minds,  religiously  disposed, 
that  we  must  trace  most  of  those  peculiarities  of  senti- 
mejit  and  practice  which  make  up  the  striking  contrast 
between  the  apostolic  and  the  Nicene  church.     This 
oriental  theosophic  sentiment  consisted  in,  and  produced 
a  fatal  misapprehension  of,  the  Divine  nature,  or  moral 
attributes  of  God,  and  its  consequence  was  to  give  a 
totally  wrong  direction  to  every  thing  in  theology  or  in 
worship,  that  might  come  within  its  reach, 
''    Gnosticism,  repelled  by  the  ancient  church,  and  at 
length  (by  fair,  as  well  as  foul  means)  finally  extirpated, 
as  a  visible  heresy,  did  not  expire  until  after  it  had  de- 
posited myriads  of  its  eggs  within  the  vitals  of  the  church, 
gnosticism  surviving  in  principle,  and  polytheism  in  ri- 


21Q  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

tual,  muke  up  together  the  bastard  religion  of  the  middle 
ages,  otherwise  called  popery.  The  protestant  churches 
have  indignantly  shaken  off  the  grosser  elements  of  this 
superstition,  that  is  to  say  the  polytheism  of  popery;  but 
they  have  not,  or  not  all,  even  to  the  present  day,  alto- 
gether dispelled  the  more  occult  and  refined  element, 
namely — the  gnosticism  of  popery:  and  to  speak  the 
plain  truth,  it  is  nothing  else  than  this  same  element,  this 
inveterate  gnostic  feeling,  that  is  now  rising  to  the  sur- 
face in  the  Oxford  divinity. 

The  identity  of  this  occult  element,  working  under 
so  many  forms,  and  during  the  lapse  of  so  many  centu- 
ries, and  struggling  on  from  east  to  west,  like  a  pesti- 
lence, born  in  the  mud  of  the  Ganges,  and  spreading 
death  to  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic,  becomes  manifest 
when  we  keep  the  eye  fixed  upon  certain  of  its  constant 
characteristics.  These  therefore  demand  our  closest 
attention. 

We  are  much  accustomed  to  think  of  the  ancient 
gnosticism,  in  a  trivial  manner,  and  only  as  we  find  it 
grotesquely  and  hastily  portrayed  in  modern  books, 
where  it  appears  as  an  unintelligible  congeries  of  puerile 
absurdities,  or  a  mere  jargon,  saved  from  contempt,  only 
by  that  daring  impiety  of  its  language  which  excites  our 
resentment.  Not  such  was  it  in  fact;  nor  as  such  did  it 
gather  to  itself,  and  fascinate  the  intellectual  masses  of 
the  ancient  world; — these  masses  too,  led  on  by  minds 
as  vigorous  and  as  lofty  as  any  that  have  figured  in  phi- 
losophy. In  forming  our  notion  of  this  system  we  must 
allow  for  the  disadvantages  we  labour  under,  first,  as 
having  to  collect  our  materials  entirely  from  among  the 
fragments  which  its  triumphant  opponents  have  chosen 
to  hand  down  for  our  inspection;  and  secondly,  as  view-j 


WITH  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  211 

lug  the  whole  in  the  light  of  a  much  better  understood 
Christianity;  and  thirdly,  which  is  no  inconsiderable 
circumstance,  as  having  ourselves  undergone  that  severe 
training  in  the  demonstrative  and  physical  sciences, 
which  impels  us  to  regard  witli  cold  contempt  whatever 
cannot  make  good  its  claims  to  respect  on  the  ground  of 
direct  evidence,  or  logical  inference.  But  to  the  mind 
of  antiquity,  the  mere  want  of  positive  proof,  far  from 
being  regarded  as  a  disparagement,  constituted  tiie  pecu- 
liar charms  of  a  scheme  of  philosophy.  The  best  praise 
of  a  system  of  theosophy  was,  that  it  soared  far  above 
the  region  of  cold  demonstration,  and  that  it  opened  a 
fair  field  of  lofty  and  delicious  speculations,  exempt  from 
the  impertinent  interference  of  dry  dialectic  methods  of 
argument.  The  ancient  mind  chose  its  religion,  as  a  vo- 
luptuary chooses  a  mistress,  not  for  her  probity,  but  her 
beauty,  to  his  eye;  and  it  desired,  not  what  could  not  be 
gainsayed,  but  what  was  too  fair  to  be  rudely  questioned. 
Gnosticism,  all  gratuitous  as  it  was,  and  rich  in  a  gor- 
geous pneumatology,  on  this  very  account  captivated  the 
meditative,  the  excursive,  and  the  pensive  orders  of 
minds;  because  it  dared  to  unfold  an  upper  world,  which 
could  be  conversed  with  only  by  a  spiritual  intuition, 
disdaining  the  trammels  of  reason. 

Gnosticism,  such  as  we  find  it  westward  of  the  Syrian 
deserts,  or  the  Euphrates,  and  such  as  it  appeared  from 
the  apostolic  age,  and  the  times  of  Philo,  and  four  cen- 
turies onward,  was  at  once  the  effort  of  that  instinct  of 
the  humt:n  mind  which  impels  it  to  penetrate  the  mys- 
teries of  the  invisible  world,  from  mere  curiosity;  and 
it  was  the  struggle  of  the  heart,  as  well  as  the  reason; 
it  was  its  agony  under  the  pressure  of  those  indefinite 
surmises  that  spring  tVom  a  contemplation  of  the  actual 


212  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIExNT  CELIBATE 

condition  of  the  human  system— its  derangement,  its 
anarchy,  and  its  corruption,  and  which  painful  emotions 
seek  repose  in  such  a  notion  of  the  Supreme  Being  as 
compromises  the  moral,  by  the  means  of  a  refinement  of 
the  natural  attributes.  Gnosticism  reaches  its  end,  when 
it  has  fashioned  a  deity  allied  to  the  imagination,  not  to 
the  conscience. 

Under  many  variations  which,  during  the  course  of 
several  centuries,  gave  some  new  aspect  to  the  system, 
almost  every  year,  these  same  germinating  impulses  are 
always  perceptible.     But  it  is  to  be  observed,  and  the 
observation  affords  a  clue  to  many  of  the  perplexities  of 
the  subject,  that,  although   the  first  of  these  motives, 
namely,  iliat  imaginative  curiosity  which  gave  birth  to 
the  rich  theories  of  gnosticism,  seemed  always  to  lead 
the  way,  and  to  be  mistress  of  the  whole,  it  was  in  fact 
the  second  impulse,  less  ostensible,  but  far  more  potent, 
namely,  the  agonizing  desire  to  resolve,  or  to  dismiss  the 
problem   of  moral  and   natural   evil,   as  disturbing  the 
government  of  an  Infinite  being;  it  was  this  impulse  which 
really  controlled  the  apparently  lawless  speculations  that 
sprung  from  the  first:  and  in  truth,  the  last  and  ripened 
form  of  gnosticism— Manicheism,  was  only  the  outbreak 
of  that  force   which,  during  centuries,   had  been   inly 
heaving  the    mass.     The    bold    doctrine    broached    by 
Manes,  of  a  personal,  independent,  and  an  eternal  evil 
principle,  waging  an  interminable  war  with  the   good, 
was  only  a  simplification  of  the  system,  brought  out,  at 
the  last,  by  that  pressure  which  was  threatening  its  de- 
struction.    Gnosticism,  less  vehemently  urged  by  the 
catholic  church— the  politically  powerful  church,  might 
long  have  continued,  as  at  first,  a  splendid  speculations 
but  thus  compelled  to  make  a  desperate  effort,  it  became^ 


WITH  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  213 

a  malignant  heresy,  and  as  such,  offered  itself  the  more 
fairly,  as  a  victim,  to  its  triumphant  rival. 

In  the  gnosticism  of  the  times  of  Philo,  the  brighter 
and  purer  element  only  appeared  on  the  surface;  while 
in  the  gnosticism  of  Manes  and  his  successors,  the  darker 
and  the  more  foul  prevailed;  but  inasmuch  as  neither 
was  at  any  time  altogether  wanting,  so  both,  while  ex- 
plicitly and  earnestly  condemned  by  the  church,  never- 
theless deeply  affected  its  opinions,  its  moral  sentiments^ 
and  its  practices.  It  is  this  unconfessed,  and  yet  exten- 
sive and  permanent  influence  of  gnosticism  upon  ancient 
Christianity,*  that  resolves  the  enigmas  of  church  his- 
tory, and  indeed  affords  a  key  to  the  difficulties  which, 
at  the  present  moment,  distract  so  many  minds. 

What  then  was  the  essence  of  this  oriental  theosophy, 
as  distinguished  from  the  genuine  theology  that  had  been 
handed  down,  through  the  inspired  patriarchs,  to  the 
Jewish  legislator,  and  by  him  sent  forward,  in  the  hands 
of  the  prophets,  and  finally  given  to  tlie  world  in  its 
perfect  form  by  our  Blessed  Lord,  and  his  apostles? 
This  theosophy,  scarcely  less  ancient  than  the  patri- 
archal piety,  and  much  more  widely  extended,  was  to 
this  effect — That  the  visible  world,  with  its  material  ele- 
ments, jarring  one  upon  another,  and  its  organized  and 
animated  orders,  perishable,  and  corruptible,  and  inimi- 
cal, and  its  intelligent  races,  degenerate  and  wretched, 
is  altogether  unworthy  of  the  Supreme  and  Infinite 
Power,  or  as  he  was  called — the  Father  Unknown,  who, 
nevertheless,  is  the  emanative  source  of  minds,  humart 
and  angelic,  or  at  least  of  the  purer  classes  of  minds. — 

*  Matter  (Histoire  critique  du  Gnosticisme,)  is  far  from  being- 
satisfactory  on  this  branch  of  his  general  subject,  and  seems  bare- 
ly conscious  of  its  importance. 

19 


214  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

That  this  material  world  was,  in  fact,  the  work  of  infe- 
rior and  imperfect  beings,  (or  of  one  such  being,)  them- 
selves removed  by  many  stages  of  filiation  from  the 
Supreme  Deity,  and  who  exercised  an  ill-fated  and  pre- 
carious empire  over  tliis  troubled  sphere,  where  man — 
unliappy  man,  finds  his  present  lot  to  be  cast,  who» 
nevertheless,  if  he  steadily  pursue  his  better  destiny, 
shall  at  length,  and  after  long  periods  of  trial  and  purga- 
gation,  and  under  the  conduct  of  the  Logos-Redeemer, 
reascend  to  his  source,  and  merge  his  being  for  ever  in 
the  boundless  ocean  of  light  and  life. 

It  was  a  side  principle  of  the  gnostic  theosophy,  a 
principle  at  the  first  advanced  for  the  purpose  of  op- 
posing the  Christian  church,  and  abandoned  only  when 
conciliation  became  necessary,  that  Jehovah,  the  god  of 
the  Jews,  was  not  the  Supreme  Deity,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, his  foe,  and  the  usurper  of  his  power. 

To  this  system,  Christianity  opposed  itself,  not  simply 
by  maintaining  its  orthodoxy,  but  more  specifically,  first, 
by  vindicating  the  constitution  of  the  visible  world,  what- 
ever partial  disorders  it  might  seem  to  embrace,  as  the 
work  of  the  Supreme  Wisdom  and  Goodness — wisely 
leaving  speculative  difficulties,  or  apparent  inconsisten- 
cies unsolved;  secondly,  by  connecting  itself  with  the 
Jewish  dispensation;  and  here  again,  leaving  untouched 
whatever  might  offend  the  captious  in  the  Jewish  history 
or  poetry;  thirdly,  by  exhibiting  the  Supreme  Being,  as 
standing  in  an  immediate  and  gracious  relationship  to 
man;  and  as  the  antagonist,  neither  of  matter,  nor  of 
the  visible  world,  nor  of  what  is  simply  finite  and  cor- 
ruptible, but  as  the  enemy  of  that  only  which  is  morally 
evil.  This  last  was  practically  the  chief  point  of  con- 
trast between  Christianity  and  gnosticism.  The  one 
system  spoke  of  God  as  hating  nothing  that  he  had  made, 


WITH  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  215 

and  hating  sin  only,  which  he  had  not  made.  Nothing 
therefore  intervened  between  God  and  man,  nothing 
could  intercept  the  fuU  tide  of  blessedness,  flowing  from 
the  Creator  toward  the  creature,  nothing  but  sin:  sin  re- 
moved, and  sin  renounced,  and  then  the  ineffable  com- 
munion between  the  Infinite,  and  the  finite,  was  restored, 
securing  the  glory  of  the  former,  and  the  felicity  of  the 
latter.  But  in  the  other  system,  the  antithesis  of  the  In- 
finite Perfection  was — the  finite  and  corruptible  material 
world,  of  which  one  of  the  mere  accidents  (and  man's 
sad  misfortune)  was  moral  disorder,  or  sin.  The  course 
therefore  to  be  pursued  by  man,  in  extricating  himself 
from  his  luckless  position,  and  in  getting  clear  of  its  ac- 
cident— sin,  was,  by  lofty  contemplation,  by  habitual 
mental  abstraction,  and  by  disengaging  himself,  as  far  as 
possible,  from  the  humiliating  conditions  of  animal  life, 
to  facilitate,  and,  in  a  sense,  to  anticipate,  his  relapse 
into  the  infinite  Nature. 

Such  were  the  two  confronted  religious  systems. 
Need  it  be  asked  which  is  the  true,  the  divine,  and  which 
is  the  illusory,  the  false?  Who  can  now  balance  between 
tlie  two?  The  catholic  church  opposed  its  substantial 
truths  to  these  baseless  and  malignant  speculations,  and 
triumphed;  but  alas,  it  fell  in  triumphing,  and  while  vi- 
gorously repelling  the  openly  pronounced  and  more  dis- 
tinct forms  of  the  gnostic  delusion,  it  too  soon,  and  at  a 
very  early  period,  yielded  itself  to  the  undefined  and  the 
more  seductive  gnostic  principle^  which  made  the  con- 
ditions of  animal  life,  and  the  common  alliances  of  man 
in  the  social  system,  the  antithesis  of  the  divine  perfec- 
tions, and  so  to  be  escaped  from,  and  decried,  by  all 
who  panted  after  the  highest  excellence.  It  was  this 
gnostic  leaven,  which  through  the  medium  of  some  ar- 
dent minds,  gained  at  length  a  firm  hold  of  the  Chris- 


%1Q  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

tian  community,  and  became  the  germinating  cause  of 
so  much  of  the  ascetic  institution  as  was  not  expiatory, 
as  well  as  of  many  of  those  superstitions  which  have 
continued  to  oppress  Christianity,  even  to  the  present 
time. 

None,  it  is  true,  who  retained  their  connexion  with 
the  catholic  church,  or  who  w^ere  recognised  by  it  as  its 
members,  allowed  themselves  to  speak  of  sin  in  gnostic 
language,  or  ever  openly  renounced,  or  altogether  over- 
looked, the  characteristic  Christian  doctrine  of  holiness, 
as  the  end  of  the  Christian  life;  but  at  the  same  time 
there  were  exceedingly  (e\v  who  hesitated  to  surren- 
der themselves  to  what  I  have  termed  the  gnostic  feel- 
ing^  in  relation  to  the  vulgar  conditions  of  man's 
present  state;  and  while  the  feeble  and  flickering  en- 
tliusiasm  of  gnosticism  itself  was  found  to  be  avail- 
ing only  with  a  very  small  class,  in  carrying  them 
forward  on  the  thorny  path  of  abstraction  and  asceti- 
cism, and  while  it  left  the  majority  to  amuse  themselves 
with  the  system  as  a  barren  speculation,  it  was  far  other- 
wise with  the  Christian  body,  among  whom  there  were 
at  work  motives  far  more  animating,  and  better  defined, 
and  more  than  sulTicient  for  giving  practical  efficacy  to 
the  very  same  principle  of  abstraction,  and  which  im- 
pelled multitudes  to  abandon  their  position  in  society, 
until,  in  fact,  the  wilderness  became  peopled  with  soli- 
taries, and  the  church  was  converted  into  a  sort  of  thea- 
tre for  the  athletae  of  the  higher  spiritual  economy. 

Gnosticism  had  its  avatar,  its  iEon  deliverer,  its 
Christos,  and  Logos,  who,  sent  down  to  this  lower 
sphere  by  the  Unknown  Fatlier,  to  oppose  and  expel  the 
Demiurge  Creator,  and  god  of  this  world,  and  the  Jeho- 
vah of  the  Jews,  was  to  recall  the  pneumalici — the  purer 
minds  of  the  human  family,  to  iheir  original  place  in  the 
intellectual  system.     But  gnosticism   had  no  vicarious 


WITH  THE  XICENE  THEOLOGY.  217 

Saviour,  no  Lamb  of  God  taking  away  the  sin  of  the 
world— no  propitiatory  death  on  the  cross: — its  Christos 
did  not  suffer  when  the  man,  Jesus,  was  crucified  by 
Pilate.  It  had  no  such  Saviour,  nor  wanted  one;  for  it 
did  not  recognise  sin  and  guilt  as  the  real  obstacles  in 
the  way  of  man's  felicity.  Only  let  the  human  spirit 
break  away  from  the  material  thralls  of  the  creator  of 
this  gross  system,  and  it  would  instantly  be  happy:  mat- 
ter, J^>«,  being  dropped,  sin,  its  accident,  would  fall 
with  it. 

The  ancient  church  felt  the  infinite  superiority  of  its 
own  system  of  belief;  and  its  constancy,  in  maintaining 
its  ground,  beleaguered  as  it  was  by  errors  so  insidious 
and  fascinating,  may  well  claim  our  admiration.  But 
how  insidious  and  how  fascinaliHg  are  those  errors  that 
spring  up  in  the  human  mind  as  the  substitutes  for  long- 
lost  sacred  truths!  Moreover,  to  aim  at,  and  to  reach  in 
religion,  something  better,  or  something  more  exalted 
and  refined  than  that  which  God  himself  has  granted  to 
us,  seems,  to  fiery  and  ambitious  spirits,  not  merely  in- 
nocent, but  laudable.  ^Yhy  may  we  not  lift  sanctity  (at 
least  for  llie  few,)  to  a  higher  level  than  that  of  the  cold 
avoidance  of  positive  sin?  Why  may  not  man  aspire  to 
be  holy  after  the  fashion  of  seraphs?  Alas!  this  loftier, 
or  seraphic  sanctity,  is  not  sanctity;  but  a  factitious  pie- 
tism, involving  the  substitution  of  principles  fundamen- 
tally false,  in  the  place  of  the  motives  of  genuine  virtue. 
So  it  was,  that  the  unearthly  holiness  which  the  ancient 
church  from  an  early  period,  made  the  object  of  its  fond 
ambition,  was  not  Christian  holiness,  but  mere  gnostic 
abstraction  from  the  innocent  conditions  of  animal  life. 
Christianity  teaches  that  a  near  approach  to  the  Father 
of  spirits  was  to  be  sought  for  on  the  path  of  that  virtue 
which  is  opposed  to  vice.  Gnosticism  held  out  the  hope 
19* 


218  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

of  such  an  approximation  by  mere  disengagement  from 
matter,  and  fronj  its  corruptibility.  The  ancient  church 
never  denied  the  Christian  doctrine  of  sanctity;  but  it  as- 
sumed along  with  it,  and  as  a  useful  subsidiary  princi- 
ple, the  gnostic  doctrine: — hence  its  asceticism,  and  espe- 
cially its  doctrine  of  the  angelic  excellence  of  virginity. 

When  will  the  church,  once  for  all,  convince  itself  of 
the  great  truth,  so  amply  confirmed  by  its  own  liistory, 
that,  to  tamper,  in  any  way,  with  the  first  principles  of 
religion,  or  to  attempt  to  exalt  and  refine  them,  is  an  en- 
deavour  not  more  impious,  than  it  is  fatal?  The  en- 
deavour to  elevate  and  rectify  Christianity,  has,  in  fact, 
proved  to  be  of  worse,  or  of  more  permanent  ill  con- 
sequence, than  the  endeavour  to  lower  its  requirements; 
for  the  latter  attempt  has  involved  only  a  relaxation  of 
principles,  while  the  former  has  demanded  a  substitu- 
tion of  one  principle  for  another,  and  has  therefore  de- 
ranged every  thing  else. 

Whenever  we  are  considering  the  ancient  Christian 
asceticism,  it  is  indispensable  that  we  should  keep  in 
view  the  difference  between  what  was  purely  abstrac- 
tive, and  what  wns  penilcntial  or  punitive,  in  its  princi- 
ples or  practices.  This  distinction,  if  not  always  clearly 
defined  in  the  monastic  writings,  is  always  easy  to  be 
observed  when  the  sentiments  of  the  ascetics  are  ana- 
lyzed. And  it  is  farllier  to  be  noted,  that,  while  in  some 
places,  and  at  certain  periods,  the  abstractive  principle, 
prompting  to  the  withdrawment  of  the  spiritual  being 
from  the  conditions  of  aninial  life,  was  chiefiy  thought 
of,  in  other  places,  and  at  other  times,  t!ie  self-torment- 
ing, penance-doing  doctrine  took  most  effect,  and  pro- 
duced those  macerations  and  inflictions,  by  means  of 
which  sin  might  be  expiated,  and  tlie  future  reckoning 
rendered  so  much  the  less  formidable.     'J'he  fact  is,  at 


WITH  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  219 

least,  a  curious  instance  of  coincidence,  (if  it  be  nothing 
more,)  that  the  chief  centres  of  gnosticism  were  also 
the  localities  where  the  abstractive  species  of  asceticism 
made  itself  prominent;  while  in  the  west,  where  gnos- 
ticism, until  a  late  period,  was  only  an  imported  doc- 
trine, the  penitential,  or  rather  expiatory  asceticism,  pre- 
vailed over  the  abstractive.  Of  this  alleged  fact,  it  would 
be  easy,  if  pertinent  to  our  present  argument,  to  adduce 
many  striking  illustrations. 

Now,  keeping  in  mind  the  above  stated  broad  distinc- 
tion, I  presume  it  will  be  universally  admitted  among 
protestants^  that  the  existence,  at  any  time,  or  in  any 
community,  of  penitential  and  expiatory  ascetic  prac- 
tices, affords  a  sufficient  and  unquestionable  proof  of  a 
■corresponding  compromise  of  that  first  principle  of 
Christianity — the  full  and  free  pardon  of  sin,  through 
the  expiatory  and  vicarious  sufferings  of  Him  who  w^as 
*' made  a  sin-offering  for  us."  Under  whatever  subter- 
fuges he  may  attempt  to  hide  his  error,  the  man  who  la- 
bours to  expiate  his  own  sin,  by  self-inflicted  pains  of 
the  body,  has  lost  his  hold  of  the  gospel  of  the  grace  of 
God:  he  may  be  very  devout,  and  very  fervent,  but  the 
gospel  he  has  framed  to  himself,  is  "  another  gospel," 
and,  in  fact,  is  no  gospel;  it  is  not  "  glad  tidings,"  but 
sad  tidings. 

Then  in  adherence  to  the  very  same  criterion  of  truth, 
we  at  once  say,  that  the  existence,  and  the  general  pre- 
valence, in  any  church,  of  the  principles,  and  practices 
of  abstractive  asceticism,  and  especially  of  the  doctrine 
concerning  the  angelic  excellence  of  virginity,  is  to  be 
held  as  sufficient  proof  of  a  corresponding  compromise 
of  the  genuine  Clirisiian  notion  of  the  divine  nature,  in 
its  moral  and  spiritual  attributes,  and  plainly  indicates 
the  substitution  of  the  gnostic  idea  of  a  deity  eternally 


220  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

at  war  with  matter,  and  abhorring  the  conditions,  and 
resenting-  the  humiliations  of  animal  life,  in  the  place  of 
the  scripture  doctrine  concerning  the  divine  holiness, 
and  hatred  of  sin. 

If  then  the  serious  imputation  now  thrown  upon  the 
ancient  church  of  having,  while  steadfast  in  its  ortho- 
doxy, admitted  the  germinating  principle  of  the  gnostic 
theosophy,  and  of  having,  so  far,  compromised  tlie  glory 
of  Christian  theology,  if  this  imputation  were  repelled, 
and  if  proof  in  support  of  it  were  demanded,  nothing 
more  need  be  done  in  justification  of  such  an  impeach- 
ment, than  merely  to  refer  to  the  unquestioned  fact,  that, 
from  the  first,  and  thence  onward  through  the  track  of 
centuries,  it  adopted,  and  extensively  acted  upon,  the  gnos- 
tic principle — That  the  highest  order  of  sanctity,  or  in 
truth  the  only  genuine  and  perfect  saiiClity,  attainable  on 
earth,  is  in  the  possession  of  those  who  withdraw  tliem- 
selves,  as  far  as  possible,  from  the  conditions  of  animal 
life,  and  especially,  wiio  renounce  and  abrogate,  in  their 
own  persons,  the  sexual  constitution.  Religious  celiba- 
cy, such  as  we  find  it  in  the  ancient  church,  was  not  an 
expiatory  sacrifice,  it  was  not  a  penance;  but  an  act  of 
abstraction,  or  an  abduction  of  the  incarcerated  soul  from 
the  i/x«,  the  dregs  and  stuff  of  the  lower  world,  by  means 
of  which  separation  it  placed  itself  just  so  much  the 
nearer  to  God,  as  it  was  the  more  reajote  from  tiie  natu- 
ral life. 

This  is  the  doctrine  of  gnosticism,  of  its  parent  soof- 
feeisro,  of  its  grand-parent  buddhism,  and  of  the  ascetic 
institute  of  tiie  ancient  church.  Almost  in  tlie  very  lan- 
guage, often  in  the  very  language  of  the  gnostic  teachers, 
and  even  while  formally  condemning  the  system,  as  an 
Anti-Christian  heresy,  do  the  Christian  writers,  and  es- 


WITH  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  221 

pecially  those  of  the  eastern  and  Alexandrian  churches, 
recommend  virginity,  and  speak  of  it  as  tl;e  only  near 
approximation  which  man  can  make  to  the  deity,  and  as 
a  forestalling  of  the  soul's  emancipation  from  the  slavery 
and  degradation  of  its  connexion  with  matter,  and  with 
animal  life.  AVhence  came  the  notion  iiniversaUy  pre- 
valent in  the  church,  and  repeated  by  a  thousand  tongues, 
that  the  virgins  of  Christ,  male  and  female,  constituted 
a  spiritual  aristocracy,  or  a  choir  of  terrestrial  angels, 
and  wlio,  as  such,  were  holy  by  emphasis,  holy  as  a 
class,  and  waiting  only  the  kind  hand  of  death,  to  lift 
them  up  to  the  throne  of  God?  All  this,  in  its  various 
colours  of  extravagance,  came  not  from  the  apostles,  nor 
is  it  to  be  traced  to  the  scriptures: — it  is  nothing  but  sheer 
gnosticism,  and  it  means  nothing  less  than  the  removing 
*' the  Father"  revealed  to  men  "by  the  Son,"  and  the 
putting  in  his  place  the  Tr-xn^f  ctyvao-ro;,  a  being  approached 
only  by  the  few — the  Trviv^jLctruoi,  who  had  withdrawn 
themselves  from  the  laws  of  the  lower  world,  and  had 
made  common  cause  with  him  as  ihe  enemy  of  the  de- 
miurge creator. 

But  can  it  be  imagined  that  a  compromise  of  first  prin- 
ciples, so  fatal  as  this,  could  come  to  its  end  simply  in 
originating,  and  in  keeping  alive  the  institute  of  celiba- 
cy? Assuredly  not;  and  it  is  nothing  less  than  what  we 
are  compelled  to  look  for,  when  we  find  that  the  same 
gnostic  feeling,  and  theosophy,  which,  in  the  celibate 
institution,  indicated  its  presence,  and  displayed  its 
power,  took  effect  also  upon  every  other  element  and 
usage  of  ancient  Christianity.  Of  this  we  shall  discover 
evidence  enough  in  the  after  stages  of  our  inquiry. 

I  do  not,  however,  wish  to  stop  short  where  I  fairly 
might,  at  this  mere  reference  to  the  ancient  abstractive 


222  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

asceticism,  as  a  sufacient  proof  of  the  prevalence  of  the 
gnostic  theosophy  and  sentiment,  in  the  ancient  cliurch, 
but  will  addnce  a  few  passages,  which,  although  tliey  can 
by  no  means  convey  the  irresistible  impression  made 
upon  an  unprejudiced  mind,  by  the  general  tenor  of  the 
ancient  church  divinity,  may  yet  serve  as  sufficient  sam- 
ples of  tliis  sort  of  compromised  Christianity. 

Who  is  to  be  accounted  orthodox,  if  Athanasius  be 
not  so?  nor  only  orthodox,  but  truly  good  and  great; 
and,  by  his  wisdom  and  courage,  more  worthy,  if  we 
may  accept  the  arbitration  of  Gibbon,  to  have  sat  on  the 
throne  of  the  Caesars,  than  either  of  his  contemporary 
imperial  enemies.  And  yet  this  great  Athanasius  was 
himself  not  more  exempt  than  the  craziest  fanatic  of  his 
times,  from  that  flimsy  ascetic  notion  of  sanctity,  which 
sprang  from  the  gnostic  notion  of  the  divine  nature.  The 
follies  of  an  inferior  mind  may,  in  any  case,  be  imputed, 
if  we  please,  to  the  individual,  but  those  of  eminently 
powerful  minds  must  rather  be  thrown  back  upon  the 
age,  and  ihey  may  safely  be  assumed  as  its  characteris- 
tics. The  vigorous  and  straightforward  understanding 
of  this  unbending  champion  of  the  faith,  could  hardly 
have  failed  to  have  broken  through  the  illusions  of  the 
times,  had  those  illusions  been  of  an  incidental  kind; 
but  they  had  arisen  steadily  and  slowly  from  deep-seat- 
ed false  theological  principles,  they  had  pervaded  the 
Christian  community,  from  the  east  to  the  west,  they  had 
acquired,  by  long  and  undisturbed  domination,  an  autho- 
rity such  as  none  (or  very  few)  dared  to  call  in  question, 
so  that  the  most  devout  and  energetic  minds  made  it 
their  glory  to  promote,  and  would  have  thought  it  a  sa- 
crilege to  have  examined,  the  venerable  errors.  AVilling- 
ly  should  we  give  so  estimable  a  man  the  benefit  of  any 


WITH  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY,  223 

tloubt  that  may  be  thought  to  attach  to  certain  tracts, 
usually  comprehended  in  his  works;  but  little  or  nothing 
could  be  gained,  for  his  reputation,  by  this  scrupulosity, 
inasmuch  as  those  of  his  writings,  the  genuineness  of 
which  has  never  been  questioned,  contain  sentiments 
fully  equivalent  to  what  may  be  found  in  those  which, 
on  this  ground,  we  might  hesitate  to  cite  as  his.     The 
apology  addressed  to  Constantius  may  be  appealed  to 
confidently,  as  genuine,  and  in  this  piece  Athanasius  uses  a 
style,  when  adverting  to  the  subject  of  religious  virgini- 
ty, which  bears  out  any  thing  elsewhere  occurring  in  the 
works  imputed  to  him.     The  expressions  applied  to  our 
Lord  in  this  tract  are  far  too  much  in  the  gnostic  style, 
and  startle  the  ear  by  their  resemblance  to  the  language 
of  the  gnostic  leaders  in  speaking  of  their  "Logos-Re- 
deemer."    "  The  Son  of  God,"  says  Athanasius,  (torn. 
i.  page  698,)  "  made  man  for  us,  and  having  abolished 
death,  and  having  liberated  our  race  from  the  servitude  of 
corruption,  hath,  besides  his  other  gifts,  granted  to  us  to 
have  upon   earth   an   image  of  the  sanctity  of  angels, 
namely,  virginity.     The  maids  possessing  this  (sancti- 
ty) and  whom  the  church  catholic  is  wont  to  call  the 
brides  of  Christ,  are  admired,  even  by  the  gentiles,  as 
being  the  temple  of  the  Logos,  az  v^lov  ovirxg  nv  xoyou.    No 
where,  truly,  except  among  us  Christians  is  this  holy 
and  heavenly  profession  fully  borne  out  or  perfected;  so 
that  we  may  appeal  to  this  very  fact  as  a  convincing 
proof  that  it  is   among  us   that  true  religion  is  to  be 
found." 

And  thus,  in  the  undoubted  tract  of  the  same  father, 
on  the  Incarnation,  we  meet  the  very  same  prominent  doc- 
trine, spoken  of  as  a  characteristic  of  the  Christian  sys- 
tenij  and  even  including  the  gnostic  phrase,  applied  to 


224     CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

virginity,  that  it  was  an  excellence  obeying  a  rule  "above 
law."  "  Who  is  there,  but  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Christ, 
that  has  not  deemed  this  virtue  (of  virginity)  to  be  ut- 
terly impracticable  (or  unattainable)  among  men;  and 
yet  he  has  so  shown  his  divine  power,  as  to  impel  youths, 
as  yet  under  age,  to  profess  it,  a  virtue  beyond  law?" 
(Tom.  i.  p.  105.)  We  cannot,  therefore,  do  Allianasius 
much  wrong  in  attributing  to  him  sentiments  which,  even 
if  they  did  not  actually  flow  from  his  pen,  are  entirely 
in  accordance  with  his  opinions,  as  elsewhere  professed. 
And  yet  it  does  not  appear  that  the  tract  on  virginity,  or 
the  ascetic  life,  is,  on  any  sufficient  grounds,  assumed 
not  to  be  genuine.  Let  it,  however,  be  taken  only  as  a 
sample  of  the  temper  and  style  of  the  times; — ^just  as 
we  say  of  the  Alhanasian  creed,  that,  whether  it  be  the 
composition  of  this  champion  of  ortliodoxy,  or  not,  it 
truly  expresses  his  known  belief,  and  that  of  the  church 
of  his  times.  If  the  individual  reputation  of  Alhanasius 
were  the  point  now  in  question,  then  the  genuineness  of 
a  particular  tract, .attributed  to  him,  would  be  a  point  es- 
sential to  our  argument;  but  not  so  when  it  is  the  cha- 
racter of  the  age,  rather  than  of  tlie  man,  which  we  are 
considering. 

Now,  looking  at  the  tract  I  have  mentioned,  as  a  whole, 
and  comparing  it  broadly  with  the  apostolic  writings,  one 
cannot  but  iiistantly  and  strongly  feel  that  the  vvriter^s 
notions  of  Christian  sanctity,  and  those  of  the  apostles, 
were  almost  totally  dissimilar;  but  then  these  notions 
difi'er  just  in  the  same  way  as  the  gnostic  idea  of  a  deity 
abhorring  the  conditions  of  animal  life,  and  at  war  with 
the  visible  world,  dilfers  from  the  Christian  idea  of  the 
true  God,  the  Creator  of  the  world,  and  haling  nothing 
but  sin.     I  might  slop  to  notice  the  utterly  unapostolic 


WITH  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  225 

Style  in  which  the  author,  in  this  treatise,  commends 
the  virtue  of  fasting.  "  What  doth  Christ  require  of 
thee,  but  only  a  pure  heart,  and  a  body  unsoiled,  and 
made  black  and  blue  with  fasting?"  How  much  better 
were  it  for  us  to  fall  back  from  Christianity,  such  as  this, 
upon  the  Jewish  prophets,  one  of  whom  gives  us  a  far 
more  Christian-like,  as  well  as  a  more  rational  reply  to  a 
similar  question — -"  What  doth  the  Lord  thy  God  require 
of  thee,  but — to  do  justice,  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk 
humbly  with  tliy  God?"  Can  we  be  at  any  loss  in 
choosing  between  two  systems  of  morality,  as  thus  sum- 
marily expressed?  What  would  not  fasting  do? — every 
thing,  says  Athanasius,  and  "  place  man  near  to  the 
throne  of  God."  Yes,  to  the  "  god  unknown  "  of  gnos- 
ticism; but  not  to  the  God  revealed  in  the  scriptures. 
Athanasius,  and  the  church  of  his  time,  did  not  altogether 
overlook,  much  less  did  they  deny,  what  was  substan- 
tial in  morals;  but  they  constantly  associated  with  these 
weighty  matters,  that  factitious  sanctity  which,  when- 
ever so  associated,  has  not  failed  to  draw  to  itself  the  at- 
tention of  ordinary  minds,  and,  in  the  end,  to  reduce  its 
companion  to  a  subordinate  and  almost  forgotten  place. 
Tell  the  mass  of  men,  as  solemnly  as  we  please,  that 
they  must  be  "  holy  in  life  and  heart,"  and  also — scru.- 
pulous  in  their  external  purifications,  and  we  shall  soon 
find  them  absorbed  in  the  details  of  this  scrupulosity, 
while  they  make  light  of  justice,  truth,  mercy,  and  pu- 
rity, as  well  as  piety.  It  would  be  of  no  avail  there- 
fore, in  relation  to  our  present  argument,  to  cite,  from 
the  same  tract,  tlie  many  excellent  moral  precepts  which 
it  imbodies: — the  question  is — With  what  are  these  pre- 
cepts associated,  and  what  are  the  notions,  concernir.g 
the  divine  nature,  which  must  have  been  suggested  by 
the  general  tenor  of  the  writer's  exhortations? 
20 


226  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

Now  let  it  for  a  moment  be  imagined,  that  some  lead- 
ing religious  writer,  of  the  present  day,  and  one  of  high 
reputation  for  intelligence  and  personal  sanctity,  as  well 
as  vigour  of  character,  addresses  a  letter  of  religious 
advice  and  encouragement,  to  a  devout  Christian  lady  of 
his  acquaintance,  and  that,  among  other  advices,  excel- 
lent as  they  may  be,  and  in  one  and  the  same  tone 
of  serious  intentness,  this  writer  presumes  to  enter  her 
chamber,  in  the  capacity  of  her  spiritual  director,  and 
■when  there,  gives  her  precise  and  solemn  instructions,  as 
to  tlie  cautions  she  should  use  in  performing  her  ablu- 
tions, and  the  reserves  she  should  adhere  to  in  changing 
her  linen! — no  such  insufTerable  impertinence  could  pos- 
sibly be  fallen  into  by  any  one,  gifted  with  a  particle  of 
common  sense,  in  these  days.  No  where,  scarcely  in 
the  Romish  communion,  could  we  find  a  spirit  so  mise- 
rably enthralled  by  superstition,  as  to  be  led  to  make  the 
ceremonials  of  the  foot-bath  an  awful  matter  of  piety,  or 
to  imagine  that  He  who  indignanUy  contemned  the  scru- 
pulous ablutions  of  the  pharisee,  was  to  be  either  pro- 
pitiated, or  offended,  by  a  lady's  using,  or  not  using, 
both  her  hands  in  washing  her  face!  (Alhan.  lom.  i.  p. 
1050.)  1  scorn  to  translate  this  page:  Does  it  most  excite 
contempt  or  indignation? 

How  is  it  then  that,  at  a  time  when  the  church  had 
gathered  to  itself  all  the  intelligence  and  learning  of  the 
age,  a  venerable  archbishop,  and  a  man  of  strong  under- 
standing, and  every  way  of  eminent  quality,  should  think 
it  a  proper  part  of  his  duty,  in  addressing  the  Christian 
ladies  of  his  charge,  to  descend  to  topics  so  degrading, 
nay,  so  incredibly  offensive?  How  is  it  that,  in  connex- 
ion with  the  changing  of  an  inner  vestment,  such  a  man 
could  bring  himself  to  adduce  the  most  solemn  motives 
of  piety?     No  other  answer  can  be  given  to  so  perplex- 


WITH  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  227 

ing  a  question  but  this — that,  in  the  age  of  the  holy 
Athanasius,  the  church  universal  had  fallen  into  notions 
of  the  divine  nature  far  more  nearly  allied  to  gnosticism 
than  to  apostolic  Christianity;  and  in  fact,  that,  while 
the  gnostic  heresy  was  denounced  by  the  lips,  the  gnos- 
tic theosophy  had  sunk  into  the  heart.  With  our  Lord's 
pointed  reprobation  of  pharisaic  formalism  full  before 
their  eyes,  these  fathers  of  the  church  nevertheless  stre- 
nuously taught  that  Christian  piety,  of  the  higher  sort, 
mainly  turned  upon,  or  at  least  could  not  dispense  wiih, 
bodily  puritications,  and  external  observances! 

A  contrast  has  been  drawn  by  several  modern  protest- 
ant  writers,  between  the  apostles,  and  the  early  fathers, 
and  the  difference  such  a  comparison  holds  out,  is  striking 
indeed.  There  is,  however,  another  comparison  which  I 
do  not  remember  to  have  seen  formally  instituted,  and 
which  offers  points  of  diversity  still  more  marked,  as 
well  as  highly  instructive.  What  I  mean  is  the  vast  in- 
feriority of  the  Christian  divines  of  the  first  five  centu- 
ries, compared,  as  teachers  of  morals,  with  the  Jewish 
prophets  of  five  hundred  years,  reckoning  from  David 
onward.  A  few  words  may  suffice  for  setting  forth  this 
very  significant  parallel. — The  Mosaic  law — a  national 
institute,  and  temporary  only,  and  intended  to  seclude 
the  Jewish  people  from  the  nations  around  them,  com- 
prised various  observances  of  personal  ceremonial  sanc- 
tity, well  called  "carnal  ordinances."  But  the  Chris- 
tian law,  intended  for  all  nations,  and  designed  for  perpe- 
tuity, drops  every  such  ritual  scrupulosity,  and  not 
merely  drops  the  observances,  but  pointedly  condemns 
any  regard  to  them  among  Christians.  The  servile  de- 
sire to  Judaize  Christianity,  is  warmly  reprobated,  as 
implying  nothing  else  than  a  renunciation  of  the  gospel. 
And  yet,  while  such   are  the  characteristics  of  the  two 


228  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

systems,  respectively,  what  are  the  actual  characteristics 
of  the  teacliing  of  those  v;ho  stood  forward  as  the  ex- 
pounders of  the  one,  and  of  the  other,  in  the  ages  fol- 
lowing the  two  institutions? — most  remarkable  is  the 
contrasted  style  of  the  Jewish  prophets,  and  of  the  Chris- 
tian doctors,  in  this  respect!  and  how  irresistible  is  the 
confirmation  it  affords  of  our  faith  in  the  inspiration  of 
the  Jewish  scriptures! 

Every  intelligent  reader  of  the  Bible  must  have  noticed 
the  general  fact,  that  the  writers  of  the  Old  Testament, 
impelled,  one  and  all,  by  an  unconscious  onward  ten- 
dency, toward  a  brighter  and  a  purer,  as  well  as  a  more 
expansive  system  than  the  Mosaic,  lay  very  little  stress 
upon  the  personal  and  more  servile  observances  of  the 
national  law;  and,  on  the  contrary,  insist,  with  a  manly, 
rational,  and  evangelic  ardour,  upon  the  great  princij)les, 
and  the  unchanging  requirements  of  justice,  mercy,  tem- 
perance, as  well  as  upon  the  development  of  the  more 
intimate  principles  of  the  spiritual  life.  What  is  the 
book  of  Psalms?  is  it  a  manual  of  monkery?  What  are 
the  prophets?  are  they  zealous  sticklers  for  ablutions, 
and  do  they  chafe  and  fret  on  points  of  the  ascetic  ritual? 
Are  David  and  the  prophets,  as  if  by  the  impulse  of  an 
involuntary  gravitation,  working  themselves  down  from 
the  greater  to  the  less,  in  matters  of  morality,  and  de- 
scending from  the  substance  to  the  form,  from  the  spiri- 
tual to  the  ritual?  Nay  indeed,  such  are  not  the  charac- 
teristics of  the  inspired  writers  of  the  Old  Testament; 
who  are  manifestly  imbued  with  the  spirit  and  the  power, 
with  the  truth,  the  reason,  of  tiie  apostles,  although  they 
did  not  enjoy  the  same  light. 

But  how  is  it  with  the  early,  and  with  the  very  best 
expounders  of  the  Christian  code — a  code  (as  found  in 
the  New  Testament)  of  truth  and   reality,  opposed  to 


WITH  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  229 

lifeless  ceremony,  and  abject  superstition?  The  very 
characteristics  which  we  have  denied  to  the  Jewish  in- 
spired writers,  are  wliat  present  themselves  on  every 
page  of  the  early  Christian  doctors.  It  is,  strange  to  say, 
the  expounders  of  Christianity — the  teachers  of  the  law 
of  liberty,  who  are  ever  passing  off  from  what  is  mo- 
mentous, to  what  is  trivial  in  morality,  and  who  seem, 
on  all  occasions,  quite  as  solicitous  about  the  forms,  as 
they  are  about  the  substance  of  piety;  and  who  rarely, 
if  ever,  fail  to  mix,  along  with  solid  instructions,  bear- 
ing upon  Christian  conduct,  some  repulsive  ingredients 
of  a  servile  superstition!  I  would  fain  ask  those  who 
are  the  best  qualified  to  answer  the  question — whether  it 
be  not  so  Is  it  not,  in  a  certain  sense,  true,  that,  if  we 
were  to  expunge  from  the  fathers  the  mere  phraseology 
of  the  gospel,  and  were  to  insert  these  same  phrases  in 
the  Old  Testament  scriptures,  then  every  thing  would 
seem  to  be  in  its  place;  as  in  a  system  chronologically 
developing  itself?  That  is  to  say,  the  fathers  might  then 
appear  the  fit  expounders  of  the  Mosaic  carnal  institute; 
while  the  prophets.  Christianized  in  their  language  mere- 
ly, might  be  accepted  as  the  genuine  successors  of  the 
apostles.  Such  an  adjustment  would  seem  to  give  the 
harmony  of  regular  progression,  and  of  continuity  to 
the  series  of  sacred  literature,  as  it  flows  forward  through 
fifteen  centuries.  On  this  ground  I  should  be  inclined 
to  urge  an  opponent  to  confess  that  the  very  best  of  the 
writers  of  the  Nicene  age,  say  Chrysostom,  Augustine, 
Basil,  Ambrose,  Jerome,  and  the  Gregorys,  fall  far  be- 
hind the  Jewish  prophets,  as  to  the  notions  they  convey 
of  the  benignity  and  the  purity  of  the  divine  nature;  and 
in  the  breadth  of  their  moral  systems,  and  in  the  respec- 
tive importance  attached  by  them  to  the  forms,  and  to 
20* 


S30  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

the  substance  of  devotion,  as  well  as  in  the  warmth,  the! 
expansion,  the  sublimity,  and  the  energy  of  the  religious 
sentiment  by  which  they  seem  personally  lo  have  been 
animated.  In  a  word,  this  must,  I  think,  be  acknow- 
ledged, that  the  w-riters  of  the  ancient  dispensation  were 
such  as  those  should  be,  who  were  looking  onward  to- 
ward the  bright  day  of  gospel  splendour;  while  the  ear- 
ly Christian  doctors  were  just  such  as  one  might  well 
expect  to  find  those  who  were  looking  onward  toward 
that  deep  night  of  superstition  which  covered  Europe 
during  the  middle  ages.  The  dawn  is  seen  to  be  gleam- 
ing upon  the  foreheads  of  the  one  class  of  writers;  while 
a  sullen  gloom  overshadows  the  brows  of  the  other. 

Every  feeling  of  rational  piety  would  be  outrMged, 
were  those  not  infrequent  passages  to  be  adduced  in 
which  the  great  divines  of  the  fourth  century,  while  la- 
bouring to  set  virginity  "above  all  praise,"  endeavour 
to  mix  up  the  notions  it  involves,  with  the  ineffable  re- 
lationships of  the  Trinity,  and,  perhaps,  in  opposition 
to  the  gnostic  notion  of  female  a^ons,  or  divinities,  in 
pairs,  attribute  an  accident  of  humanity  to  God  iiimself. 
Much  of  this  sort  that  meets  the  eye,  in  the  fathers' 
must  be  left  where  it  lies — and  may  it  never  find  a  trans- 
lator! But  let  those  who  would  be  warned  of  the  dan- 
ger of  running  into  frightful  impieties  when  the  reins 
are  given  to  fanatical  impulses,  open  Gregory  Nyssen, 
Uipt  rictffijv/atc,  and  look  up  and  down,  and  especially  at  the 
second  chapter,  beginning  a-vvio-iucysLp-h/xtv.  II  we  shudder, 
as  we  must,  at  the  presumption  of  the  gnostics,  while 
they  are  describing  the  emanation  of  the  pairs  of  aeons, 
male  and  female,  from  the  Supreme  Deity,  can  we  regard, 
without  indignant  reprobation,  the  shameless  audacity  of  a 
Christian  writer,  and  a  biphop,  who  dares  to  speak  as 
Gregory  Nyssen  does  of  the  relationship  of  the  Eternal 


WITH  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  231 

Father  to  the  Eternal  Son?  If  this  be  not  gnostic  theo- 
sophy,  it  is  something  worse;  and  assuredly  it  is  not 
Christian  tiieology.  Better  renounce  Christianity,  with 
the  gnostics,  than  thus  insult  its  most  sacred  truths,  with 
Gregory  Nyssen.  In  order  to  secure  for  the  celibate  all 
possible  patronage,  and  the  highest  authority,  this  writer, 
designating  our  Lord  by  a  phrase  of  gnostic  origin,  as 
T«v  TTHynv  T«?  aipb'ifxrui,  insists  iipon  the  fact  of  his  enter- 
ing the  world  in  a  manner  implying  a  tacit  disparage- 
ment of  marriage;  and,  in  another  place,  (Oration  on 
Christmas  day,)  he  does  not  scruple  to  adopt  a  foolish, 
but  favourite  tradition,  concerning  the  Virgin  Mary,  the 
import  of  which  is  to  secure  her  suffrage  in  support  of 
the  practice  of  vowing  virginity  in  very  childhood,  a 
practice  cruel  in  itself,  and  the  occasion  of  the  worst 
abuses  of  the  monkish  system.  Josepli,  we  are  assured, 
by  the  authors  and  retailers  of  this  legend,  was  pitched 
upon  as  a  worthy  man,  who  would  consent  to  take 
charge,  for  life,  of  the  young  virgin,  (Mary,)  in  the  os- 
tensible relationship  of  her  husband,  but  really  as  the 
guardian  of  her  innocence.  And  it  is  remarkable  as  an 
instance  of  theological  infatuation,  even  with  the  sound- 
est minds,  that  the  absurd  story  which  Gregory  Nyssen 
introduces,  with  some  apology,  as  apocryphal,  Augus- 
tine, a  few  years  later,  coolly  alludes  to,  as  if  it  were  an 
authenticated  fact;  and,  in  his  customary  mode  of  atte- 
nuated reasoning,  labours  to  infer  as  much  from  the 
words  of  scripture.  "It  is  clear,"  says  he,  (!)e  Sancta 
Virginitate,)  "  that  Mary  had  previously  (that  is,  before 
the  visit  of  the  angel,)  devoted  herself  to  God,  in  invio- 
lable chastity;  and,  that  she  had  been  espoused  to  Jo- 
seph on  this  very  condition;  desponsata  viro  jusio,  non 
violenter  ablaturo,  sed  potius  contra  violentos  custodituro, 
quod  ilia  jam  voverat."    And  all  this  was  to  be  aihrmed 


232  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

and  believed,  in  order  that,  as  he  says,  Mary  might 
*' furnish  an  example  to  holy  nuns  in  all  time  to  come!" 
But,  to  return  for  a  moment  to  Gregory  Nyssen,  I 
will  refer  to  the  fifth  chapter  of  the  tract  above  men- 
tioned, as  furnishing  an  example  of  that  sort  of  gnosti- 
cized  Christianity  wliich  was  felt  to  be  needed  in  giving 
support  to  the  practices  and  sentiments  universally  adopt- 
ed by  the  church.  The  contrast,  on  this  point,  between 
apostolic  and  ancient  Christianity  is  striking.  Peter 
affirms  that,  "by  the  promises  of  scripture  we  are  mac|,e 
partakers  of  the  divine  nature,  having  escaped  the  cor- 
ruption that  is  in  tlie  worhl,  iv  iTriQv/uttx  " — a  term  which, 
in  its  canonical  sense,  implies  always  sin,  not  simple  af- 
fection. But  the  writer  now  before  us  declares,  that 
the  only  way  of  approach  to  the  Deity,  is  on  the  path 
of  abstraction  from  the  affections  of  humanity,  as  con- 
nected with  our  animal  and  social  state;  and  that  the  in- 
stitute of  virginity  has  this  very  end  in  view,  that  we 
may  the  more  efiectually  withdraw  ourselves  from  the 
entanglement  of  our  nmndane  existence.  Now,  all  this 
is  sheer  gnosticism.  The  gospel  teaches  men  to  deny 
ungodliness  and  worldly  hists;  gnosticism  taught,  or 
would  fain  have  taught  its  followers,  to  deny  and  to  re- 
sent those  humiliating  conditions  which  the  malignant 
or  unwise  demiurge — the  Creator  of  this  world  had  im- 
posed upon  the  human  race;  and  thus,  in  substance,  and 
often  with  a  very  near  resemblance  of  language,  speak 
the  ancient  promoters  of  asceticism.  If  the  style  of 
Gregory  Nyssen,  on  subjects  of  this  class,  be  compared 
witii  that  of  Mahometan  dervishes,  or  of  Persian  sooffees, 
or  of  the  Grecian  stoics,  or  Pythagorians,  or  Platonists, 
or  with  that  of  the  gnostics  of  his  own  times,  it  does  not 
appear  that  any  solid  advantage  cnn  equitably  be  claimed 
for  him.    Call  Nyssen  a  Christian  father,  and  Epictetus 


WITH  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  233 

a  heathen  philosopher,  if  you  please,  and  let  the  church 
pay  her  homage  to  the  fi)rmer  on  the  9th  of  March,  or 
on  any  other  day,  and  let  her  reprobate  the  latter  every 
day  of  the  year;  mean  time,  this  I  am  sure  of,  that  I 
could  take  many  entire  pages  from  both,  and  placing 
them,  in  their  naked  merits,  before  an  acute  and  intelli- 
gent Christian  reader,  desiring  him,  from  internal  evi- 
dence alone,  to  endorse  each  quotation  with  the  word 
Christian  or  Heathen,  and  he  would  as  often  interchange 
these  designations,  as  apply  them  truly.  And  I  think, 
moreover,  that  no  candid  mind  would  refuse  to  acknow- 
ledge that  the  praise  of  good  sense,  genuine  simplicity, 
and  consistency,  must,  most  decisively,  be  awarded  to 
the  dark  pagan. 

*'  In  order  that  we  may,"  says  Nyssen,  in  the  tract 
above  referred  to,  "  with  a  clear  eye,  gaze  upon  the  light 
of  the  intellectual  universe,  we  must  disengage  ourselves 
from  every  mundane  affection,  and  lay  aside  the  feculence 
of  the  corporeal  condition."  Thus  have  talked  mystics 
of  every  sect,  and  in  all  ages,  and,  while  dreaming  about 
the  "divine  nature,"  have  totally  lost  sight  of  real  piety 
and  virtue.  The  mysticism  of  the  fathers  is  distin- 
guished from  that  of  others  by  a  peculiar  slang,  which, 
unconsciously,  they  caught  from  the  gnostic  teachers, 
their  contemporaries. 

There  can  hardly  be  a  more  gross  illusion  than  that 
of  supposing  that  some  few  Christian  phrases,  such  as — 
♦*  our  Saviour,  Christ,"  or,  *'  through  the  grace  of  the 
Son  of  God,"  really  avail  to  Christianize  a  page,  a  chap- 
ter, or  a  treatise,  which,  these  naked  phrases  apart,  we 
should  never  have  surmised  to  have  come  from  Christian 
lips.  Nor  are  religious  writings  to  be  Christianized  by 
the  formal  insertion,  here  and  there,  of  a  creed,  nor  by 
the  inlaying  of  texts  of  scripture.     A  Christian  writing 


234  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

is  a  composition  which  breathes  tlie  spirit,  and  which  is 
marked  througliout  by  the  peculiar  principles  of  the  New 
Testament.  Now,  judgCvi  by  this  rule,  I  think  several 
of  the  most  noted  of  the  fathers  would  be  cashiered  of 
their  usurj)ed  honours,  and  set  down,  some  way  below 
the  level  of  the  belter  heatfien  writers.  I  fear  this  would 
be  the  fate  of  both  tlie  Gregorys — I  mean  Nyssen,  just 
quoted,  and  the  eloquent  Nazianzen. 

For  propagating  their  opinions  more  widely  and  rea- 
dily, the  gnostic  teachers  had  had  recourse  to  the  ciiarms 
of  verse;  and,  to  supplant  them  on  this  ground,  several 
of  the  fathers  struck  their  lyres;  among  these,  Ephraim, 
Synesius,  and  Nnzianzen;  but  of  what  quality  was  the 
antidote  they  provided?  Let  us  take  some  samples — 
Synesius  by  and  by,  Nazianzen  at  present.  It  seems  to 
have  been  the  belief  of  these  writers  that,  to  make  the 
nearest  possible  approach  to  gnostic  doctrine  and  lan- 
guage, while  orthodoxy  was  saved,  afforded  the  surest 
means  of  excluding  the  specious  heresy.  A  mistaken 
notion,  surely:  but  it  is  thus,  that,  while  their  opponents 
were  ranting  about  the  vileness  of  their  body,  and  the 
sublimity  of  the  endeavour  to  break  away  from  its  hu- 
miliations, a  Christian  bishop  could  follow  on  the  same 
path,  and  say  (Carmina  lambica) — 

AVhere  did  Nazianzen  learn  any  sucli  doctrine  as  this? 
We  can  only  reply — Where  he  learned  sucli  as  the  fol- 
lowipo",  and  neither  the  one  nor  tlie  other  from  the  in- 
spired  writings. 

*' Happy  the  course  of  those,  the  unmarried-blessed, 
who,  (in  this  world,)  having  shaken  off  the  flesh,  are 
nearer  to  the  divine  purity."* 


WITH  TrlE  NICEXE  THEOLOGY.  235 

What  teaching  more  delusive  in  its  tenuency,  than 
tlie  telling-  a  company  of  persons  that,  because  unmar- 
ried, they  were  "near  to  God."  Gnostics  taught  no- 
thing more  pernicious;  nor  any  tiling,  practically,  unlike 
this.  They,  or  some  of  them,  discouraged  marriage, 
not  merely  because  it  involved  distractions  incompatible 
with  the  contemplative  discipline;  nor  merely  because  it 
was  an  additional  tie,  connecting  the  soul  with  the  body; 
but,  because  it  was  the  means  of  carrying  on  that  pro- 
cess of  "  linking  spirits  to  flesh,"  which  the  demiurge 
had  set  a-going,  despite  of  the  Supreme,  and  which  the 
Supreme  Deity  was  labouring  to  bring  to  an  end.  Now, 
such  notions  being  afloat,  how  does  a  Christian  teacher 
seek  to  withstand  them?  By  addressing  *'  a  spouse  of 
Christ"  in  language  such  as  that  of  the  exhortation, 
Trpoc  TTctpSivovc,  (tom.  ii.  p.  299,)  not  merely  abounding 
with  the  very  cant  of  gnosticism,  about  the  agency  or 
influence  of  matter,  the  commixture  of  natures,  the  har- 
mony of  spirits,  with  the  Supreme  Spirit;  but  present- 
ing, in  a  distinct  form,  the  gnostic  doctrine  that  the 
Christos,  the  Logos,  had  descended  into  this  world  to 
abrogate  the  original  sexual  constitution,  and  to  institute 
a  more  spiritual  economy.  Let  the  studious  reader  look 
to  the  whole,  as  it  stands;  and  if  he  thinks  that  a  florid 
writer's  real  opinions  ought  not  to  be  inferred  from  his 
poetic  effusions,  he  may  compare,  with  the  composition 
here  mentioned,  the  following  passage  from  our  author's 
thirty-first  oration,  which  offers  the  same  gnostic  jar- 
gon, and  the  same  gnostic  principles,  mixed  up,  indeed, 
with  a  larger  proportion  of  Christian  phrases — "She 
who  is  under  the  yoke  (of  matrimony)  is  in  part  Christ's; 
but  the  virgin  is  Christ's  wholly.  'J'he  one,  indeed,  is 
not  altogether  bound  to  the  world;  but  the  other  turns 
from  the  world  altogether.    That  which  is  partial  in  the 


236  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

married,  is  entire  with  the  virgin,  'i'hou  hast  chosen* 
the  angelic  life,  and  hast  ranged  thyself  with  those  who 
are  unyoked,  (the  angels,)  that  thou  shouldst  not  be 
borne  downward  toward  the  Ilcsh,  that  thou  shouldst  not 
be  borne  downward  nc  v\kv,  that  thou  shouldst  not, 
even  while  remaining  unmarried,  be  wedded  t»  Ja«." 
This  is  the  very  style  of  tlie  Alexandrian  gnostics,  and 
on  the  ground  of  this  same  notion  of  the  wedding  of 
some  souls  to  matter — a  humiliation  from  which  others 
were  exempt — Valentinian  distributed  human  spirits  into 
the  three  classes,  of  the  spiritual,  the  material,  and  the 
j)hysical.  In  truth,  many  passages  of  gnostic  teachings 
re[)orted  by  Origen,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  and  Ire- 
nacus,  want  but  a  little  revision  to  make  them  altogether 
of  a  piece  with  the  rhapsodies  of  Christian  divines,  in 
recommending  the  ascetic  life.*  "  How  angelic  is  it  to 
lead  a  life,  not  merely  not  fleshy,  but/«r  rained  above 
the  laws  of  nature  herself  T'  Looking  at  language  such 
as  this,  by  itself,  one  must  rather  imagine  it  to  have  come 
from  the  lips  of  the  enthusiasts  of  the  school  of  Simon 
Magus,  than  from  those  of  a  well-informed  teacher  of 
C/iiristianity.  If  the  people  at  large  are  taught  that  the 
highest  perfection  attainable  by  man  in  the  present  stale 
consists  in,  and  is  to  be  pursued  by  the  means  of,  a  di- 
vorce of  the  heaven-born  soul  from  matter,  whatever  they 
may  at  other  times  be  told  to  tiie  contrary,  they  will  in- 
evitably form  a  notion  of  the  divine  purity,  as  being  the 
antithesis  ratlier  of  corporeitij^  than  of  sin;  and  this  no- 
lion,  iar  more  agreeable  as  it  is  to  the  unrenewed  mind 
tlian  the  other;  although  it  be  more  abstruse,  will,  in 
fact,  give  law  to  the  whole  of  the  religious  system,  of 

*  Some  specimens  of  this  sort  will  be  found  in  a  note  at  the 
end  of  this  Number. 


WITH  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  237 

which  it  is  an  element.  ^  The  very  aUusion  contained  in 
the  epithet  applied  by  the  writer  now  before  us  to  God, 
whom  he  calls  "the  only  bridegroom  of  pure  souls," 
(twentieth  oration,)  conjoined  with  the  doctrine  that  ab- 
solute purity  is  to  be  attained  only  by  those  who  renounce 
marriage,  could  not  but  have  the  effect  of  diverting  the 
minds  of  ordinary  Christians  from  a  genuine  and  spi- 
ritual conception  of  the  divine  nature.  This  substituted 
notion  is  the  very  egg  of  gnosticism,  and  it  has  made  it- 
self the  parent  of  all  superstition. 

Better  doctrine  than  this  is  met  with  in  a  much  infe- 
rior writer,  and  one  who  was  himself  superstitious 
enough  in  his  way,  I  mean  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  who, 
•TTipt  a-a/uixrocj  kecps  clear  of  extravagance  on  a  subject 
where  very  few  of  his  contemporaries  could  observe  the 
bounds  of  moderation.  It  must  also  be  admitted  that 
the  great  man  to  whose  praises  Gregory  devotes  the 
above  cited  oration,  although  the  principal  mover  and 
patron  of  the  ascetic  life,  yet  abstains  from  many  of  the 
reprehensible  sentiments  which  abound  in  the  writings 
of  the  Nicene  age.  Basil,  far  surpassing  his  brother 
Nyssen,  and  his  friend  Nazianzen,  in  substantial  quali- 
ties, as  well  of  the  intellect  as  of  the  heart,  may  pro- 
perly be  adduced  as  affording  the  most  impressive  ex- 
ample that  can  be  imagined  of  the  fatal  tendency  of  the 
theology  of  the  age,  in  perverting  minds  even  of  the 
highest  order.  Of  Basil's  superiority  to  most  of  his 
contemporaries — the  superiority  of  sound  sense,  and 
right  Christian  feeling,  we  might  well  enough  adduce, 
as  instances,  those  frequent  passages  in  which  his  papis- 
tical editors  feel  it  necessary  to  attach  a  caute  legendum 
to  a  paragraph — that  is  to  say,  to  places  where  the  wri- 
ter is  seen  to  be  rising  above  the  superstitions  of  his 
21 


238      CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

times.  Such  an  instance  we  find  in  the  Homily  on  thz 
Incarnation,  where  Basil,  touching  the  topic  that  had 
been  so  poorly  handled  by  Nyssen,  and  that  was  to  be 
so  abused  by  Augustine,  treats,  as  of  little  practical  im- 
portance, the  very  point  which  they,  and  others,  laboured 
to  establish  as  of  ineffable  moment  and  solemnity.  Ne- 
vertheless, and  amidst  the  frequent  outbursts  of  a  better 
reason  and  of  a  better  faith,  this  great  and  devout  man 
yields  himself,  like  others,  to  that  same  gnostic  notion 
of  the  divine  character,  of  which  the  ascetic  doctrine, 
and,  particularly,  the  institute  of  celibacy,  were  the  pro- 
per expressions.  On  what  warrant  of  scripture  does 
Basil  dare  to  affirm  that  virginity  is,  "  that  which  makes 
man  resemble  the  incorruptible  God?"  Neither  our 
Lord,  nor  the  apostles,  utter  a  word  that  gives  even  a 
colour  to  an  anthropomorphous  sentiment  of  this  kind. 
The  doctrine  is,  in  fact,  pure  gnosticism :  and  the  ine- 
Titable  practical  effect  of  it,  is  to  impel  the  Christian  to 
pursue  an  ideal,  or  Platonic,  instead  of  a  genuine  and 
spiritual  species  of  sanctity.  I  can  suppose  nothing  less 
than  that,  while  Basil  and  his  contemporaries  were  treat- 
ing subjects  of  this  class,  the  being  they  were  thinking 
of  was  not  the  true  God  of  the  scriptures,  but  the  incor- 
poreal First  Mind,  of  the  eastern  theosophy. 

Let  us  then  listen  a  moment  to  the  bishop  of  Caesa- 
rea,  and  say,  impartially,  whether  his  style  resembles 
most  that  of , Paul,  Peter,  John;  or  that  of  Saturninus, 
Basilides,  Valentinian.  It  is  not  a  few  sentences,  taken 
apart,  that  can  convey  a  just  impression  of  the  writer's 
mind  and  feeling.  I  indulge  the  hope  therefore  that  di> 
ligent  and  conscientious  students  will  read  for  themselves 
the  entire  tract  I  am  now  referring  to,  De  Vera  Virgini- 
tate,  (torn,  i.)  and  satisfy  themselves  on  the  question, 
-which  has  become  a  very  important  one,  Whether  ths^ 


WITH  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  239 

Nicene  church  was,  or  was  riot,  fatally  affected  by  the 
oriental  poison:  I  would  even  stake  the  present  argu- 
ment upon  an  examination  of  this  very  tract. 

*'  A  great  (virtue)  truly  is  virginity,  which,  to  say  all 
in  a  word,  renders  man  like  to  the  incorruptible  God. 
And  this  (virginity)  is  not  a  something  that  goes  forth 
from  (springs  from)  the  corporeal,  until  it  reaches  the 
soul,  but  belonging  to  the  incorporeal  soul,  (the  gnostic 
principle  expressly)  as  a  choice  excellence,  avails,  by  its 
own  incorruptness,  for  preserving  uncorrupt  that  which 
is  corporeal.  For  the  soul  having  conceived,  and  hold- 
ing to  the  idea  of  the  true  good,  is  wafted  aloft  in  its  ap- 
proaches toward  it,  as  on  the  wing  of  this  incorruptness 
(virginity,)  and,  as  like  to  lilve,  intently  waiting  upon  the 
incorruptible  God,  brings  up  the  virginity  of  the  body  as  a 
ready  and  obsequious  servant  to  assist  it  ever  in  the  calm 
contemplation  of  the  divine  perfections;  and  for  this  pur- 
pose, and  that  it  may  admit,  as  in  a  pure  mirror,  the  divine 
image,  it  dispels  all  those  perturbing  passions  which  af- 
fect our  lower  nature."  Farther  on,  in  the  same  treatise, 
De  Vera  Virginitate,  the  nun  is  said  to  strive  to  present 
herself  to  the  incorporeal  deity  yvfj^vm,  and  unconscious 
of  any  pleasures  attaching  to  the  body?  I  can  do  nothing 
more,  consistently,  with  the  limits  within  which  this 
branch  of  the  argument  must  be  restricted,  than  just 
point  to  the  places  where  sentiments  of  this  sort  are  to 
be  met  with  in  their  expanded  form.  In  the  view  of  the 
general  reader,  who  must  accept  this  sort  of  evidence, 
as  it  is  laid  before  him,  my  inferences  may  seem  to  be 
too  slenderly  connected  with  the  facts,  as  adduced.  Let 
them  then  be  contradicted  by  those  who  have  at  com- 
mand the  means  of  examining  this  evidence  in  the  mass. 
Or,  let  the  advocates  of  ancient  Christianity  favour  the 
world  by  including  among  the  "records  of  the  church," 


240  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

a  translation,  whole  and  entire,  of  this  very  treatise  on 
the  true  virginity. 

It  is  of  a  piece  with  the  false  and  gnostic  notion  of  the 
mode  of  approacliing  the  Deity,  as  advanced  by  Basil, 
that  this  wise  and  holy  man  is  found  spending  his 
strength  upon  the  observances  of  factitious  sanctity;  and 
that,  in  a  practical  composition  addressed  directly  to  wo- 
men, he  enters,  with  the  most  offensive  particularity, 
into  physical  disquisitions  and  speculations  of  a  kind 
not  only  totally  unbecoming  in  a  minister  of  religion, 
and  marvellously  improper  as  intended  for  a  lady's  ora- 
tory, but  unconnected,  in  the  remotest  way,  with  the 
culture  of  that  "  true  holiness"  of  which  the  apostles 
speak.  But  the  two  systems  of  virtue  were  wrought 
out  of  altogether  diiferent  elements.  Basil,  like  Nazi- 
anzen  and  others,  thinks  himself  called  upon  to  enter  a 
Christian  lady's  dressing-room,  and  there  to  give  her  re- 
ligious rules  for  the  whole  of  her  behaviour  at  the  toi- 
let, gravely  enjoining  her,  among  sundry  instructions 
equally  important,  in  pity  to  the  angels  who  visit  her 
chamber,  to  use  the  utmost  despatch  in  the  necessary 
care  of  her  hair,  lest  they,  to  their  own  peril,  should 
look  too  long  upon  her  dislievelled  tresses!  Then  fol- 
lows the  customary  reference  to  Gen.  vi.  2,  our  author 
having  before  warned  the  nun  of  preserving  her  bash- 
fulness,  not  merely  when  in  the  presence  of  men,  but 
always,  and  in  recollection  of  the  "  circumambient  an- 
gels," from  whose  regards  she  could  never  withdraw 
herself. — (Tom.  i.  p.  747,  of  the  Paris  edition,  1618.) 

Now  if  we  assume  that  these  miserable  and  perni- 
cious refinements  actually  took  effect,  as  they  were  likely 
to  do,  on  the  minds  of  sensitive  and  superstitious  young 
women,  could  the  result  be  any  thing  else  than  that  of 
diverting  the  thoughts  from   whatever  is  truly  spiritual 


WITH  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  241 

and  genuine  in  piety,  and  putting  in  its  place,  a  morbid 
solicitude  concerning  the  person,  so  imaginative  in  its 
objects,  and  so  voluptuous  in  its  style,  as  to  differ  very 
little  from  the  most  dangerous  species  of  prurience?  A 
nunnery,  fully  brought  under  this  sort  of  management, 
could  become  nothing  better  than  a  spiritual  harem. 
Shall  we  then  wish  for  our  daughters,  that,  in  place  of 
the  rational  and  truly  apostolic  instructions  which  they 
are  receiving  from  modern  Christian  pastors,  they  should 
be  consigned  to  the  influence  of  divines,  such  as  Basil, 
Nazianzen,  Nyssen!  Horrid  thought!  nevertheless  from 
this  utterly  vicious  system  nothing  could  even  now  save 
us,  if  once  we  were  to  resolve  to  surrender  ourselves 
to  what  we  are  taught  to  reverence  as  catholic  teaching. 
"Catholic  teaching!"  Basil's  treatise  on  virginity  is  ca- 
tholic teaching,  and  a  perfectly  fair  specimen  of  tlie  lan- 
guage and  temper  of  the  times.  If  any  thing  at  all  be 
catholic,  that  is  to  say,  ancient  and  universal,  the  false 
gnostic  theosophy  of  the  ascetic  institute  is  catholic. 

A  few  phrases,  as  I  have  said,  can  convey  but  a  very 
imperfect  impression  of  the  spirit  and  tendency  of  a  pro- 
lix treatise,  and  yet  more  copious  quotations  must  em- 
brace what  it  would  be  an  outrage  to  every  right  feeling 
to  adduce.  An  unreserved  translation  of  Basil — one  of 
the  best  of  the  fathers,  could  it  be  tolerated,  would  as- 
tound the  Christian  world.  1  have  affirmed  that  a  reli- 
gious house  of  the  times  now  in  question,  could  be  little 
better  than  a  harem;  if  this  imputation  be  resented,  as  it 
probably  may,  let  the  facts  implied  by  Basil  toward  the 
close  of  the  treatise  I  have  cited,  be  taken  as  evidence 
that  a  modern  Turkish  seraglio,  might  be  chosen  as  a 
preferable  asylum  for  female  virtue.  Or  if  this  evidence 
were  not  enough,  I  shall  presently  have  to  refer  to  pas- 
sages in  Chrysostora  and  in  Jerome,  the  plain  import  of 
21* 


*242  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

which,  making  every  reasonable  allowance,  will  leave 
a  decisive  advantage  to  be  claimed  (or  a  pacha's  palace, 
if  compared  with  the  nnc'ieni  koivc^icv. 

To  repress  and  exclude  tlie  abuses  invariably  attend- 
ant upon  this  vicious  system,  the  great  writers  of  the 
time  laboured  with  indignant  animation.  But  not  even 
one  of  them,  as  it  appears,  set  himself  to  call  in  question 
the  principle  upon  which  it  rested,  or  inquired  in  what 
school  that  principle  had  l)een  learned.  So  thoroughly 
had  the  feeling  and-lhe  notions  of  what  I  cannot  scruple 
to  call  a  baptized  soofTeeism,  pervaded  the  Christian  com- 
munity, that  no  suspicion  seems  to  have  been  entertained 
of  the  cheat  which  so  early  had  put  the  Buddhist  theo- 
sophy  in  tbe  room  of  Christian  theology — leaving  to 
the  church  its  dry  ortliodoxy  indeed,  but  hiding  from  it 
the  genuine  conception  of  the  divine  nature. 

In  an  argument  such  as  the  one  now  before  us,  it  may 
be  well  to  abstain  from  citing  those  writers  whose  repu- 
tation was  in  any  way  tarnished,  or  wiiose  style  is  not 
in  harmony  with  tiiat  of  tlie  age  they  lived  in;  or  if  re- 
ferences of  this  kind  are  made,  it  should  be  only  so  far 
as  these  less   esteemed   authorities   speak  the  language 
that  was  authenticated  by  tlieir  better  reputed  contempo- 
raries, and  which   does   but  echo   prevailing  opinions. 
Now  with  these  cautions  in  view,  and  after  tlie  most 
esteemed  fathers,  such  as  Basil,  and  the  two  Gregories, 
have  been  consulted  on  the  subject  of  the  angelic  per- 
fection of  the  ascetic  life,  let  the  Hymns  of  Synesius  be 
referred  to.     In  these  beautiful  compositions  (some  of 
them)  the  oriental  theosoj)hy,  under  whatever  temporary 
designation  it  may  pass,  and  whether  it  be  called  Bud- 
dhism, or  sooffeeism,  or  Pythagorism,  or  Platonism,  or 
gnosticism — this  same   doctrine,  thinly  spangled   with 
Chrisli.an    phrases,    is    clearly    and    boldly   expressed. 


WITH  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  243 

These  hymns  then,  as  the  productions  of  a  man,  albeit 
a  bishop,  and  an  associate  of  the  great  divines  of  the  age, 
who  at  the  time  of  his  almost  compulsory  consecration, 
did  not  profess  himself  to  be  much  better  than  half  a 
Christian,  could  not  fairly  avail  us,  in  argument,  as  le- 
gitimate evidence,  if  they  did  not  find  parallels  in  the 
best  theological  writings  of  the  time.  If  indeed  a  cor- 
rect notion  of  gnosticism  is  to  be  gathered  from  the  re- 
ports of  Clement,  Irenaeus,  and  Origen,  this  airy  and 
seductive  doctrine,  utterly  unlike  Christian  theology,  is 
substantially  imbodied  in  the  Hymns  of  Synesius,  leaving 
out  indeed  so  much  of  its  jargon,  as  must  have  shocked 
every  Christian  ear,  and  expressing  just  so  much  as 
might  find  its  apology  in  the  writings  of  the  orthodox. 
This  gnostic  doctrine  then,  as  advanced  by  the  bishop 
of  Cyrene,  implies  the  total  oblivion  as  well  of  man's 
real  condition,  as  guilty  and  morally  corrupt,  and  of  the 
divine  purity,  opposed  to  this  corruption,  and  the  put- 
ting in  the  place  of  these  truths,  the  Buddhist  idea  of  the 
Father  of  souls,  or  ocean  of  mind,  into  which  pure  spi- 
rits, struggling  away  from  matter,  are  at  length  to  return. 
If  the  first  and  second  hymn  be  compared  with  Basil's 
treatise  on  virginity,  from  which  I  have  already  made 
an  extract,  not  merely  a  loose  resemblance,  but  a  close 
analogy  must  be  acknowledged  to  connect  the  two  wri- 
ters, in  this  instance;  and  if  the  bishop  of  Cyrene  em- 
ploys a  phrase  or  two  which  the  bishop  of  Csesarea 
would  perhaps  have  rejected,  there  is  little  or  nothing  to 
choose  between  the  two,  either  as  to  principle,  or  ten- 
dency. 

Many  turns  of  expression,  occurring  in  the  hymns  of 
Synesius,  might  pass  unnoticed  by  a  modern  reader 
who  was  not  already  apprized  of  the  specific  sense  at- 
tached to  such  phrases  in  the  contemporary  gnostic 


^44  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CELIBATE 

schools.  Some  indeed  of  these  modes  of  speaking  would 
seem  strange  in  the  last  degree,  and  utterly  unwarrant- 
able: as  for  instance,  when,  addressing  the  Deity  the 
poet  says — 

but  when  we  come  to  open  the  records  of  gnosticism, 
the  real  value,  or,  as  it  is  called,  the  historic  sense  of 
these  characteristic  phrases  presents  itself  clearly  enough. 
Such  are  the  terms — "root  of  the  world,"  "root  of 
roots,"  "fountain  of  fountains;"  and  the  prosopopeias 
of  "Wisdom,"  "Mind,"  "Generative  Power,"  "Ce- 
lestial Silence,"  and  the  like.  "  The  wave-troubled 
Hyle,"the  "  bright  Morpha,"  the  "Primogenitive  Beau- 
ty," and  the  "  daemon  swarm  which  Nature  hatches." 
And  such  too  is  the  language  in  which  Synesius  lauds 
the  abstractive  life,  which,  as  he  says,  "opens  to  the 
human  spirit  a  way  of  return  to  the  upper  sphere"  (lan- 
guage almost  identical  with  that  of  Basil;  see  particularly 
the  close  of  the  second  hymn;  or  of  the  tliird)  and  he  prays 
that,  until  he  shall  be  permitted  to  lose  himself  again  in 
the  "ocean  of  ligiit,"  and  while  compelled  to  submit  to 
the  trammels  of  the  corporeal  state,  he  may  at  least  be 
aided  in  leading  a  life  as  exempt  as  possible  from  human 
affections,  and  from  all  contact  with  the  soul-depressing 
Hyle.  With  these  aspirations  of  the  lofty  mystic,  it  is 
rather  curious  to  compare  the  temper  and  conduct  of  the 
real  Synesius — the  palpable  bishop  of  Cyrene,  who  does 
not  dissemble  the  fact  that  he  would  fain  have  relieved 
the  tedium  of  his  corporeal  existence,  now  and  then,  by 
the  jocund  pleasures  of  the  chase. 

If  an  elaborate  disquisition  on  this  important  feature 
of  ancient  Christianity  were  in  hand  (instead  of  a  hasty 


WITH  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  245 

allnsion  to  it,  which  is  all  1  can  attempt)  the  hymns  of 
Synesius  might  very  properly  be  taken  as  the  text  of  the 
argument;  with  these,  adduced  at  length,  should  then 
be  compared  the  entire  extant  specimens  of  the  language 
of  the  professedly  gnostic  teachers— Syrian  and  Egyp- 
tian. Next  should  follow,  what  might  easily  be  collect- 
ed, a  copious  collection  of  passages  from  the  Nicene 
writers,  presenting,  not  merely  innumerable  coincidences 
of  expression,  but  many  real  analogies,  of  doctrine,  and 
near  approximations  in  feeling;  and  all  tending,  in  the 
same  direction,  to  establish,  beyond  a  doubt,  the  fact, 
that  the  oriental  theosophy,  while  formally  repelled  by 
the  orthodox  church,  had  silently  worked  its  way  into 
all  minds;  uttering  itself  in  the  various  modes  of  mystic 
exaggeration,  and  condensing  its  practical  import  within 
the  usages  of  the  ascetic  system.  The  massive  walls  of 
the  church,  like  a  hastily  constructed  coffer-dam,  had  re- 
pelled, from  age  to  age,  the  angry  billows  of  the  gnostic 
heresy,  which  could  never  open  a  free  passage  for  them- 
selves within  the  saered  enclosure.  Nevertheless  these 
waters,  bitter  and  turbid,  no  sooner  rose  high  around  the 
shattered  structure,  than,  through  a  thousand  fissures, 
they  penetrated,  and  in  fact  stood  at  one  and  the  same 
mean  level,  within,  where  they  were  silently  stagnant, 
as  without,  where  they  were  in  angry  commotion. 
Dare  we  say  that,  at  rest,  they  worked  themselves  either 
clear  or  sweet? 

II.  Connexion  of  the  Celibate  with  the  Notions 

ENTERTAINED  OF  THE  ScHEME  OF  SALVATION. 

We  have  in  the  next  place  to  inquire  in  what  way 
and  to  what  extent,  the  principle  and  practice  of  re- 


246  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

ligious  celibacy  affected,  as  well  the  doctrine  as  the  sen- 
timent of  the  ancient  church,  in  regard  to  the  scheme  of 
salvation,  and  the  means  of  the  divine  mercy  toward 
man,  as  depraved,  and  as  liable  to  condemnation. 

There  is  surely  some  prominent  truth  which  broadly 
distinguishes  Christianity,  as  compared  with  every  other 
religious  system,  and  which  may  be  taken  as  its  leading 
characteristic;  nor  can  we  hesitate  to  name,  as  such,  the 
mode  it  propounds  for  restoring  mankind,  guilty  and  pol- 
luted, to  the  divine  favour — a  scheme  utterly  unlike 
any  which  man  has  devised  for  himself.  Every  thing 
else,  belonging  to  the  gospel,  may  find,  elsewhere,  its 
faint  resemblance,  or  its  imperfect  rudiment:  but  this 
doctrine  is  the  prerogative  of  the  inspired  writings;  ob- 
scurely, yet  substantially  unfolded  in  the  Old,  fully  and 
brightly  set  forth  in  the  New  Testament.  By  emphasis, 
this  doctrine  of  mercy,  however  variously  expressed,  or 
peculiarly  expounded  in  different  schools  of  divinity,  is 
called — the  Gospel;  for  it  is  the  happy  news  which  God 
only  could  announce;  which  man  never  had  surmised, 
and  which,  although  so  worthy  as  it  is  of  all  accepta- 
tion, he  has  perversely  shown  himself,  in  every  age, 
marvellously  slow  to  apprehend,  apt  to  lose  sight  of,  and 
prompt  to  embarrass  or  deny. 

In  the  present  instance,  as  I  am  anxious  to  avoid,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  style  and  method  of  a  philosophical  or 
generalized  disquisition,  so  on  the  other,  I  would  gladly 
refrain  from  the  specific,  or  technical  language  of  a  theo- 
logical or  polemical  treatise;  keeping  close  to  what  is 
proper  to  a  plain  historical  inquiry  concerning  facts 
which  may  be  unquestioiKibly  established  by  an  appeal 
to  evidence.  But,  avoiding  every  phrase  that  has  ac- 
quired a  controversial  sense,  and  every  mode  of  expres- 
sion that  may  recall  the  "confession"  of  this,  that,  or 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION,  247 

the  other  religious  party,  one  may  surely  speak  of  the 
characteristic  principle  of  Christianity,  in  terms  such  as, 
without  being  vague,  shall  carry  the  concurrence  of  all 
devout  and  intelligent  readers  of  the  scriptures.  Is  not, 
then,  the  gospel  a  message  of  mercy — free,  full  in  its 
provisions,  and  sovereign — a  message  implying  that  all 
men  are,  in  this  regard,  on  a  level  in  the  sight  of  God, 
and  that  that  which  is  indispensable  to  the  salvation  of 
the  most  flagitious  offenders,  is  not  the  less  indispensable 
to  that  of  the  most  amiable  and  harmless?  Is  not  the 
gospel  ONE  METHOD  OF  SALVATION,  Sufficient  and  effica- 
cious for  the  worst — necessary  for  the  best?  Does  not 
the  gospel  (if  indeed  it  be  understood,)  carry  with  it  as 
thorough  a  lesson  of  humiliation  to  one  proud  heart,  as 
to  another?  Does  it  not  bring  with  it  as  much,  and  as 
sure  a  consolation  to  one  guilty  heart,  as  to  another? 
Does  it  not  convince  all  men  aliiie,  of  sin,  and  of  moral 
impotency?  Does  it  not  confirm  all  (if  indeed  it  be  ac- 
cepted,) in  the  same  good  hope  of  acceptance,  and  of 
being  regarded  as  now  no  longer  aliens,  but  as  sons,  and 
as  fellow-heirs  with  Christ? 

In  whatever  way  other  religious  schemes,  that  have 
prevailed  in  the  world,  may  be  classified,  they  all  stand 
at  an  equal  distance  from  Christianity,  in  regard  to  its 
peculiarity  and  its  glory,  its  doctrine  of  justification, 
through  faith:  some  of  these  schemes  may,  indeed,  ap- 
proach it  more  nearly  than  others,  as  to  its  morality: 
some  seem  to  come  within  the  penumbra  of  the  light 
which  it  sheds  upon  the  unseen  world;  some  consist 
better  than  others  with  the  temporal  well-being  of  man;— 
but  all  occupy  a  ground  immeasurably  remote  from  that  on 
which  the  gospel  takes  its  stand.  All  difier  from  Chris- 
tianity, in  this  respect,  just  as  night  differs  from  day;  and 
whether  the  night  be  rendered  magnificent  by  millions 
of  stars,  or  be  overcast  with  the  thickest  clouds. 


MS  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

If  at  any  time  a  comparison  be  instituted  between 
true  religion  and  false  religion,  taken  absolutely,  it  may 
barely  be  worth  the  labour  it  may  cost,  to  distinguish 
among  the  several  kinds  of  the  latter;  inasmuch  as  all 
come  nearly  to  the  same  practical  result;  the  best,  as 
well  as  the  worst,  leaving  man  uncomforted  in  the  pro- 
spect of  futurity,  and  unamended,  in  his  heart  and  life. 

But  when,  as  now,  our  intention  is  to  make  inquiry 
concerning  the  particular  corruptions  which  true  religion 
has  undergone,  in  the  lapse  of  ages,  it  then  becomes  ne- 
cessary to  distinguish,  and  to  classify  a  little,  those  se- 
veral forms  of  error  which  have  successively  overlaid 
the  truth,  one  by  one;  or  several  in  conjunction.  Such 
a  discrimination  is  absolutely  requisite,  (as  all  protestants 
admit)  in  relation  to  Romanism,  which  so  strangely  and 
so  admirably  combines  the  main  principles  of  every  an- 
terior false  religion.  Nor  shall  we  find  it,  really,  less 
requisite  in  following  up  to  their  sources,  those  fatal  errors 
of  the  ancient  church,  which  gradually  ripened  into  Ro- 
manism. 

All  religions  have  been  of  Asiatic  origin;  and  (the  true 
now  not  considered)  they  resolve  themselves  easily  into 
two  great  principles,  conveniently  designated  by  the 
historical  terms  Buddhism,  and  Brahminism.  The  in- 
fluence of  the  former,  in  its  more  recent  garb,  as  gnosti- 
cism, we  have  already  adverted  to;  and  especially  in  so  far 
as  it  gave  birth  to,  and  sustained,  the  abstractive  ascetic 
practice,  and  the  doctrine  of  the  angelic  virtue  of  virgi- 
nity. We  shall  next  have  to  trace  the  operation,  latent 
indeed,  but  unquestionable,  of  the  Brahminical  principle, 
combining  itself  with  the  former;  and  the  two,  hostile 
as  ihey  were  east  of  the  Indus,  blending  together,  most 
amicably,  within  the  precincts  of  the  Christian  church. 
This  blended  Buddhism  and  Brahminism  is,  in  a  word, 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  249 

the  ancient  monkery,  at  once  abstractive  and  penitential. 
How  shall  wretched  man  return  to  virtue  and  happi- 
ness? The  Buddhist,  the  Soofiee,  the  Pythagorean,  the 
gnostic,  replied — By  extricating  the  imperishable  spirit 
from  its  connexion  with  matter,  the  eternal  source  of 
evil;  and  by  merging  itself  anew  in  the  eternal,  univer- 
sal good.  The  characteristic  of  this  scheme,  under  all 
its  varieties,  is  its  total  disregard  of  the  moral  derange- 
ment of  human  nature;  or  rather,  we  should  say,  its 
view  of  moral  evil  as  a  m.ere  accident,  and  a  temporary 
consequence  of  natural  evil.  In  its  practical  instruc- 
tions, therefore,  it  insisted  more  upon  mental  abstraction, 
silence,  simplicity  of  diet,  and  celibacy,  than  upon  any 
positive  austerities,  or  propitiatory  rites:  sin,  man's  mis- 
fortune, not  fault,  did  not  need  ta  be  expiated. 

But  the  Brahminical  doctrine  took  up  the  other  ele- 
ment of  theology;  and  along  with  its  terrible  array  of 
divinities,  most  of  them  vindictive,  and  all  invested  with 
human  qualities,  it  propounded  a  system  of  propitiation, 
and  concerned  itself  immediately  with  the  moral  senti- 
me7it,  and  wrought  upon  the  conscience:  it  addressed  it- 
self more  to  the  fears,  than  to  the  hopes  of  which  the 
human  mind  is  alternately  the  sport:  it  admitted  man  to 
be  guilty,  and  in  danger  of  wrath;  it  was,  therefore,  san- 
guinary, gloomy,  sumptuous,  and  elaborate  in  ceremo- 
nial, popular  in  its  aspect,  rather  than  philosophical,  and 
of  unbounded  potency,  involving  as  it  did,  and  having 
at  its  command,  all  the  terrors  that  wait  upon  guilt;  so 
that  it  could  enforce  the  most  revolting,  and  the  most 
excruciating  practices  of  immolation,  and  of  self-torture. 
In  the  name  of  the  gods,  the  avengers  of  crime,  it  could 
command  the  trembling  wretch — its  victim,  to  inflict 
upon  himself,  or  to  sustain,  whatever  pains  he  might 
imagine  his  angrv  judge  to  be  prepared  to  inflict  upon 
*  22 


250  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

him.  If  we  would  see  the  two  oriental  systems,  and 
each  characteristically  imbodied,  ("ne  might  say  disim- 
bodied,  for  each  leaves  to  man  barely  a  shadow  of  his 
entire  constitution)  we  should  only  have  to  look,  on  the 
one  hand,  to  the  dreaming  soofTee,  lost  to  sense  and  na- 
tural affection,  an  idiot  sage,  or,  as  one  might  say,  a 
metaphysic  vegetable,  just  alive,  where  he  sits;  and  on 
the  other  side,  to  the  Hindoo  fakir,  crucified  without  a 
cross,  his  nails  piercing  his  palms;  the  martyr  of  con- 
science, and  grasped  by  the  despair  of  guilt. 

The  church  of  Rome  has,  without  scruple,  adopted, 
intimately  blended,  and  refined,  these  two  schemes  of 
religion;  and  after  having  formally  and  tacitly,  dogma- 
tically and  practically,  excluded  the  gospel,  it  has  pro- 
vided itself  with  a  circuitous,  and  somewhat  complex 
reply  to  the  question  which  the  alarmed  conscience  is 
ever  and  again  propounding.     Its  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion— "  What  must  a  man  do  to  be  saved?"   involves 
something  of  Buddhism,  and  more  of  Brahminism;  it 
takes  up  tlie  gnostic  physical  abstraction,  and  the  philo- 
sophic sanctity,  and  this  it  offers  to  its  elite,  the  elevated^ 
impassioned,  and  devotional  few:  and  then  it  takes  up 
the  moral  element  of  religion,  and  deals  in  penances, 
macerations,  flagellations,  masses,  confessions,  absolu- 
tions, purgatorial  expiations,  and  the  vicarious  offices  of 
the  clergy,  and  of  the  saints,  of  the  dead,  and  of  the 
living;  and  this  compound  it  offers  to  the  rabble  of  man- 
l^ind — the  debauched   and  trembling  multitude,  who,  as 
the  long  dreaded  time  comes,  when  nothing  better  can  be 
thought  of,  thankfully  accept  from  the  priests'  hands, 
any  salvation  that  is  offered  to  them,  and  on  any  terms. 
In  thinking  of  popery,  we  should  never  lose  sight  of 
its  two  blended  elements — its  Buddhism,  and  its  Brah- 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  251 

minisra — its  abstractive,  and  its  expiatory  principles — 
its  provision  for  the  few,  and  its  provision  for  the  many. 
Both  ingredients  are  brought  to  bear,  as  in  a  focus,  upon 
the  monastic  institute,  of  which,  celibacy,  the  prime 
article,  stood  chiefly  related  to  the  first  of  them  ;  while 
the  practices  of  mortification  and  penance  were  related 
to  the  second.  The  perfect  monk,  '  the  angel  upon 
earth,'  such  as  we  find  him  elaborately  depicted  by  the 
great  church  writers  from  Basil  to  Bernard,  was  at  once, 
and  in  nearly  equal  proportions,  the  sooffee,  and  the 
fakir  ;  the  enthusiast,  and  the  fanatic  ;  the  sublime  theo- 
sophist,  and  the  bleeding,  weeping,  whining  or  puling 
raartyr  of  a  darkened  conscience. 

But  alas!  it  is  not  alone  of  the  superstition  of  the 
middle  ages  that  we  have  thus  to  speak ;  for  ancient 
Christianity — the  universally  accredited  system  of  the 
Nicene  age,  blends,  in  the  like  manner,  though  with  less 
compactness,  the  two  ingredients  of  the  natural  religion 
of  mankind  ;  and  while  it  was  most  explicitly  gnostic, 
in  its  temper  and  sentiments,  was  also  Brahminical,  as 
well  in  doctrine  as  in  practice. 

If,  with  the  great  divines  of  the  fourth  century  around 
us,  we  plainly  put  the  question  to  one,  and  all — "  How 
shall  guilty  man  approach  the  just  and  holy  God,  and 
how  secure  his  favour?"  the  prompt  and  formal  answer, 
no  doubt  will  be — "  By  humbly  accepting  the  redemp- 
tion procured  for  mankind  by  the  Saviour  Christ,  and 
conveyed  through  the  hands  of  the  church."  But  then 
this  reply  is  ordinarily  couched  in  very  indefinite  terms; 
and  when  we  come  to  repeat  our  demand,  and  to  pursue 
it  as  a  practical  question,  then  the  more  exact  answer 
given,  by  one  and  all,  is  to  this  efi'ect — "  First,  that 
man  may  place  himself  near  to  God,  and  may  anticipate, 
on  earth,  the  absolute  virtue  and  felicity  of  heaven,  by 


252     CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

removing  himself,  as  far  as  possible,  from  the  inimical 
vhi  with  which,  in  the  present  state,  he  is  implicated; 
and  with  this  view,  that  is  to  say,  if  he  would  be  perfect, 
he  must  regard  the  preservation  of  an  inviolate  virginity 
as  the  great  business  of  piety;  and  then,  thus  far  ex- 
empted from  the  conditions  of  animal  life,  he  must  addict 
himself  to  lofty  meditations  of  the  divine  attributes:  or, 
to  use  the  very  words  of  Chrysostom,  "  That  the  soul 
clisengaged  from  its  trammels  and  all  earthly  thoughts, 
should  wing  its  way  to  its  home,  and  its  native  soil." 
But  secondly,  that,  in  order  to  regain  and  secure  the 
favour  of  God,  man  must  propitiate  his  offended  judge, 
and  take  into  his  own  hands,  in  the  present  life,  that 
discipline  of  chastisement  which  he  so  well  merits,  and 
may  so  justly  expect  as  his  due.  Now,  in  this  latter 
point  of  view,  celibacy  has  its  use,  as  the  necessary 
condition  of  that  mode  of  life  which  leaves  a  man  at  full 
leisure  to  practise  the  whole  round  of  expiatory  and 
abstersive  austerities.  How  should  the  married  and  the 
busy  get  through,  from  day  to  day,  with  the  heavy  work 
of  penance?  Such,  in  substance,  was  the  ancient  theo- 
logy, and  the  piety  of  tlie  Nicene  church! 

Within  this  system,  therefore,  religious  celibacy  was 
at  once  the  expression  of  gnostic  feelings  (as  we  have 
seen)  and  the  condition,  or  the  preliminary  of  a  course 
of  penance  and  expiation. 

Yet  let  it  not  for  a  moment  be  supposed  that  the  Nicene 
church,  or  that  the  great  writers  of  that  age,  either  for- 
mally denied,  or  failed  frequently  to  mention,  the  great 
doctrine  of  the  remission  of  sins,  granted  through  the 
means  of  the  sacrifice  once  offered  on  the  cross.  The 
ancient  church  no  more  denied  this  doctrine,  than  it  re- 
jected orthodoxy;  nevertheless  the  relative  position  into 
%yhich  it  had  been  suffered  to  subside,  was  such  as  in 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  253 

fact  involved  a  loss  of  its  vital  influence:  it  no  longer 
presented  its  radiating  surface  towards  the  consciences 
of  men. 

The  experience  of  eighteen  centuries  might  surely 
now  suffice  for  convincing  the  church  that,  to  secure  the 
efficacy  of  the  gospel,  something  more  is  requisite  than 
a  formal  acknowledgment  of  a  set  of  dogmas;  and  that 
the  relative  position  of  great  principles,  as  foremost,  or 
as  hindermost,  is  the  very  circumstance  on  which  de- 
pends their  taking  any  effect  upon  the  human  mind.  All 
systems,  professedly  Christian,  agree  in  representing 
holiness,  or  an  inwrought  conformity  to  the  moral  cha- 
racter of  God,  as  the  end  and  substance  of  piety;  and  the 
difference  between  system  and  system  turns  upon  the 
answer  that  is  given  to  the  question  •'How  (as  to  the 
process)  is  this  lioliness  to  be  effected?"  Tlie  gospe], 
and  this  is  its  characteristic,  makes  the  free  and  absolute 
remission  of  sins,  and  an  immediate  reconciliation  to 
God,  through  the  mediation  of  Christ,  the  spring-prin- 
ciple, or  motive  of  morality.  To  him  who  would  be 
7iear  God,  and  to  him  who  w^ould  be  like  God,  it  says-— 
«'  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  that  taketii  away  the  sin  of 
the  world."  This  is  the  gospel  method  of  holiness. 
Reconciled  to  God,  and  enjoying  the  privileges  of  chil- 
dren, the  Spirit  of  holiness  dwells  in  the  hearts  of  be- 
lievers, as  a  purifying  influence. 

But,  if,  instead  of  putting  the  doctrine  of  justification, 
and  reconciliation,  and  of  the  free  and  absolute  remission 
of  sins,  foremost,  as  the  source  and  cause  of  genuine  re- 
ligious feeling,  and  real  virtue,  we  put  an  ill-digested, 
half-philosophic,  half-hindoo,  notion  of  sanctity,  fore- 
most, and  if  we  bend  our  endeavours  toward  it,  as  the 
main  object,  then,  w'hatever  profession  we  may  make  of 
faith  in  Christ,  our  motives  will  have  none  of  the  vitali- 
22* 


254     CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

ty,  or  of  the  force  of  Christian  holiness.  The  sun  is 
not  indeed  driven  from  the  heavens,  in  such  a  system; 
but  it  is  eclipsed;  and  the  Christian,  for  such  we  must 
still  call  him,  droops,  becomes  pallid,  gloomy,  supersti- 
tious, timid,  punctilious;  a  trembling  attendant  upon 
rites,  a  perfunctory  practitioner  of  ceremonies — fretting, 
fasting,  upbraiding  himself,  impatient  of  earth,  afraid  to 
hope  for  heaven,  and  feeling  like  the  dyspeptic  patient 
who,  in  his  troubled  dreams,  thinks  himself  to  be  labour- 
ing to  mount  a  ladder,  or  to  ascend  a  flight  of  steps  ;  and 
yet,  with  all  his  painful  efforts,  not  rising  an  inch  from 
the  ground.  Such  is  the  sad  condition  of  those  in  whose 
spiritual  perspective  the  truths  which  should  occupy  the 
foreground,  are  seen  in  the  distance; — they  are  indeed 
seen;  but  it  is  as  "  afar  off,"  and  as  a  cold  glimmer. 

In  the  perspective  of  ancient  Christianity,  personal 
sanctity  stood  in  front  of  the  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith  (or  the  doctrine,  by  whatever  phrase  it  may  be  de- 
signated, which  is  the  characteristic  of  the  gospel)  and 
so  far  obscured  it:  but  tliis  was  not  all;  for,  in  front  of 
this  very  doctrine  of  personal  sanctity,  stood  the  gnostic 
notion  of  angelic  perfection,  or  virginity:  thus  was  there 
effected  a  double  eclipse  of  the  light  of  the  gospel.  If 
the  question  had  been  put — "  "What  is  a  Christian's 
aim?"  and  it  had  been  replied — "  To  be  holy;"  and 
again,  "  How  may  he  become  holy  in  the  most  absolute 
manner?"  the  answer  was — "  By  avoiding  the  contami- 
nations of  matrimony,  and  by  refraining,  on  earth,  from 
that  which  the  angels  are  denied  in  heaven — the  marry- 
ing, and  the  being  given  in  marriage."  Of  what  avail 
then  would  it  be  to  prove,  by  multiplied  citations,  that 
the  doctrine  of  the  remission  of  sins,  and  of  justification, 
in  some  ambiguous  sense  of  the  term,  was  firmly  held 
by  the  ancient  church?     Let  reasonable  men  ask  them- 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  255 

selves  whether  the  gospel,  such  as  we  find  it  in  the  in- 
spired writings,  could  possibly  consist  with,  or  could  be 
efficacious,  as  a  body  of  motives,  in  combination  with 
notions  such  as  these? 

Is  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  and  of  a  full  remis- 
sion of  sins,  thereby  procured,  a  doctrine  of  universal 
application,  or  is  it  not?  Have  all  men  equal  need  of 
it;  or  is  it  only  a  desperate  resource,  left  for  those  who 
have  unhappily  failed  to  secure  heaven  for  themselves 
in  a  more  direct,  honourable,  and  legitimate  manner? 
This  question  is  a  vital  one  in  relation  to  Christianity, 
and  on  the  answer  that  may  be  given  to  it,  whether  our 
reply  be  formal  or  tacit,  turns  the  entire  character  of  our 
piety.  Let  then  this  question  be  repeated  in  any  such 
pointed  manner  as  may  seem  the  most  likely  to  bring  it 
conclusively  to  an  issue.  All  allow  that  the  thief  on  the 
cross  must  have  been  saved  by  a  sovereign  extension, 
toward  him,  of  that  mercy,  the  means  of  which  were, 
at  that  m.oment,  being  secured  by  the  suffering  Saviour. 
But  if  the  "  beloved  disciple  "  had  been  dragged  to  Cal- 
vary, along  with  his  Master,  and  if,  as  might  have  hap- 
pened, he  had  occupied  the  right-hand  cross,  would  he 
too  have  been  saved  by  the  same  means  as  the  thief,  and 
on  the  very  same  principle?  Or,  had  he  already  reached, 
by  merit  of  virginity,  and  by  the  purity  of  his  man- 
ners, such  a  proximity  to  the  divine  holiness,  as  that  he 
needed  nothing  but  just  to  drop  the  encumbrance  of  the 
flesh,  and  to  find  himself  at  case  before  the  eternal 
throne?  We  surely  should  not  gather  any  such  suppo- 
sition as  this  from  his  own  language,  when  he  says  of 
the  Saviour  that  "He  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins." 

But  now  there  would  be  no  end  to  our  citations,  were 
we  to  adduce  all,  or  a  third  of  those  passages  from  the 
fathers  in  which  the  celibate,  when  held  to  in  the  strict- 


^56  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

est  manner,  is  spoken  of  as  a  mode  of  life  differing  from 
that  of  the  angels  in  heaven,  neither  in  purity,  nor  in 
security;  and  only  so  far  in  felicity,  as  resulted  from  the 
conditions  of  mortality:  "  drop  the  flesh,  and  then  the 
monk,  or  the  virgin  nun,  is  at  once  a  seraph!"  That  no 
such  passage  might  be  produced,  I  will  not  affirm,  but 
certainly  I  have  met  with  not  so  much  as  one,  in  which 
the  inviolate  virgin  is  spoken  of  as  being,  like  others, 
even  like  any  repentant  Magdalene,  de])endent  altogether 
for  salvation  upon  the  vicarious  merits  of  the  Saviour. 
Allowing,  however,  that  some  such  passage  might  be 
hunted  up,  yet  assuredly  it  is  not  the  usual  style  of  the 
great  church  writers  of  the  Nicene  age.  Certainly  this 
way  of  putting  the  case,  in  relation  to  the  monk  and 
virgin,  is  not  characteristic  of  "  catholic  teaching." 
Catholic  teaching  runs  in  a  contrary  direction,  and  the 
clear  import  of  it  is  to  this  practical  effect — That,  to 
have  exiiorted  a  "spotless  nun,"  in  lier  last  hour,  to 
look  to  the  atonement,  as  the  only  ground  of  hope  for  a 
dying  sinner  (or  saint)  would  have  been  a  very  inappro- 
priate, unseemly,  and  even  offensive  sort  of  interference 
with  the  honour  and  comfort  she  was  entitled  to:  and 
would  have  been  an  insult,  like  thrusting  an  obolus  into 
the  palm  of  a  Croesus. 

I  boldly  ask  any  one  competent  to  give  me  a  reply, 
whether  herein  I  misrepresejit  the  general  character  of 
ancient  catholic  teaching;  and  if  not,  tlien  I  ask,  appeal- 
ing, not  merely  to  the  few,  who  m.ay  be  able  to  turn  to 
the  patristic  folios,  but  to  the  right-minded  Christian 
world  at  large,  whether  the  first  element  of  the  gospel 
was  not  effectually  and  fatally  compromised  by  an  iii- 
islitute  which,  in  practice,  superseded  the  "only  hope" 
that  "  maketh  not  ashamed?" 

At  this  point  we  touch  that  article  of  discrimination — 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATIOX.  257 

that  test  wliicli  exhibits  the  difference  between  aposto- 
lic, and  Nicene  Christianity.  Does  Paul,  when,  either 
obliquely  or  directly,  he  expresses  his  personal  hope  of 
heaven,  so  speak  as  to  imply  that  he  looked  to  be  ac- 
quitted, accepted,  and  saved,  on  any  other  principle  than 
that  which  he  would  have  urged  upon  a  penitent  prodi- 
gal, called,  at  an  hour's  warning,  to  appear  before  God? 
We  confidendy  assume  that  the  apostle  who,  if  any 
ever  have  understood  Christianity,  understood  it,  was 
used  to  make  no  distinctions  whatever  between  man  and 
man,  when  persuading  all  to  "lay  hold  of  the  hope  set 
before  them  in  the  gospel." 

But  how  different  is  the  style  of  the  doctors  of  the 
Nicene  and  following  age!  Then,  a  spiritual  aristocracy 
had  grown  up  within  the  church;  and  those  of  this  class 
who  could  profess  that  their  celestial  escutcheons  were 
shamed  by  no  spot — these,  if  never  plainly  told  that 
they  stood  above  the  range  of  the  gospel  scheme  of  sal- 
vation, were  seldom,  if  ever  told,  that  they  could  claim 
no  exemption,  and  were  entitled  to  no  prerogative,  and 
must  be  saved,  if  at  all,  even  as  others.  What  then! 
after  all  her  conflicts  with  nature,  all  her  tears  and  fast- 
ings, must  the  spotless  virgin,  the  spouse  of  Christ, 
submit,  at  the  last,  to  the  humiliation  of  standing  along 
with  the  married,  on  the  same  level,  needing  mercy, 
even  as  others?  alas!  if  it  comes  to  this,  has  she  not 
driven  a  poor  trade? 

Those  can  know  very  little  of  the  human  heart  who 
can  believe  that  monks  and  nuns,  talked  to  as  they  con- 
stantly were  by  their  spiritual  guides,  and  told  that,  be- 
cause virgins  in  body  and  soul,  they  stood  as  near 
to  God  as  flesh  and  blood  can  stand — that  these  victims 
of  delusion  could,  nevertheless,  be  humbly  and  contrite- 
ly relying,  as  sinners,  upon  the  propitiatory  work  of 


258     CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

Christ.  It  was  not  so  in  fact;  no  such  spirit  breathes 
through  the  extant  records  of  monkish  piety,  here  and 
there  we  gladly  catch  a  faint  gleam  of  sunshine,  as  in  a 
wintry  and  watery  day;  but  monkish  piety,  on  the  whole, 
was  nothing  better  than  what  we  must  expect  to  meet 
with,  as  the  proper  fruit  of  this  "  catholic  teaching." 

Catholic  teaching!  let  us  hear  a  little  of  it;  and,  for  a 
sample,  take  the  portrait  of  a  spotless  nun,  as  drawn  by 
the  master  hand  of  Chrysostom  himself:  and  be  it  re- 
membered, we  are  not  now  about  to  gaze  upon  the  blind 
pharisee,  whose  lips,  life,  and  manners,  said  to  all  around 
him — "  Stand  by,  I  am  holier  than  thou;"  but  upon  an 
ideal  of  Christian  perfection,  conceived  and  expressed  by 
one  who,  irrespective  of  his  high  station  in  the  church, 
has  always  been  granted  to  stand  forward  as  the  prince 
of  the  fathers. 

The  passage  I  am  about  to  quote  is  taken  from  a  tract 
to  which  I  must  again  refer:  it  was  composed  by  Chry- 
sostom, with  the  hope  of  repressing  the  infamous  prac- 
tice against  which,  as  we  have  seen,  Cyprian,  long  be- 
fore, and  in  another  quarter  of  the  cliurch,  had  vehe- 
mently protested,  namely,  that  of  nuns  cohabiting  with 
men,  and  which  tract,  with  its  companion,  addressed  to 
monks,  contains  admissions  and  exposures  which  one 
must  have  thought  exaggerations,  if  they  were  not  borne 
out  by  concurrent  testimony.  But  let  the  archbishop's 
immaculate  nun  step  upon  the  stage.  Our  author  had 
just  told  the  nun  that,  like  cherubim  and  seraphim,  she 
and  her  order,  constituted,  not  the  attendants  of  the 
eternal  King,  but  his  very  chariot.* 

*  In  quoting  Chrysostom  1  shall  refer  to  the  volume  and  page 
of  the  recent  Paris  reprint  of  the  Benedictine  edition,  which  is 
perhaps  as  likely  as  any  other  to  be  accessible  to  the  studious 
reader.    The  above  occurs,  torn.  i.  p.  321. 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  259 

"  The  virgin,  when  she  goes  abroad,  should  present 
herself  as  the  bright  specimen  ^^«x^«  of  all  philosophy; 
and  strike  all  with  amazement,  as  if  now  an  angel  had  de- 
scended from  heaven;  or  just  as  if  one  of  the  cherubim  had 
appeared  upon  earth,  and  were  turning  the  eyes  of  all 
men  upon  himself.     So  should  all  those  who  look  upon 
the  virgin  be  thrown  into  admiration,  and  stupor,  at  the 
sight  of  her  sanctity.     And  when  she  advances,  she 
moves  as  through  a  desert;  or  when  she  sits  at  church, 
it  is  with  the  profoundest  silence,  her  eye  catches  no- 
thing of  the  objects  around  her;  she  sees  neither  wo- 
men nor  men;  but  her  Spouse  only;  and  he,  as  if  pre- 
sent and  apparent;  and  then  retiring  to  her  home,  there 
again  she  communes  with  him,  in  prayers,  and  his  voice 
alone  she  listens  to,  in  the  scriptures;  and  of  him  there 
she  thinks,  whom  she  desires  and  loves;  and  whatever 
she  does,  it  is  as   a  pilgrim   and  a  stranger,  to  whom 
things  present  are  as  nothing.     Not  only  does  she  hide 
herself  from  the  eyes  of  men,  but  avoids  the  society  of 
secular  women  also.     The  body  she  takes  care  of  only 
so  far  as  necessity  compels  her,  while  she  bestows  all 
her  regards  upon  the  soul:  and  who  shall  not  marvel  at 
her?  who  shall  not  be  in  ecstasy,  in  thus  beholding  the 
angelic  life,  imbodied  in  a  female  form?     And  who  is  it 
that  shall  dare  approach  her?     Where  is  the  man  who 
shall  venture  to  touch  this  flaming  spirit?     Nay  rather, 
all  stand  aloof,  willing  or  unwilling;  all  are  fixed  in 
amazement,  as  if  there  were  before  their  eyes  a  mass  of 
incandescent  and  sparkling  gold!     Gold  hath  indeed  by 
nature  its  splendour;  but  when  saturate  with  fire,  how 
admirable,  nay  even  fearful  is  it!    And  thus,  when  a  soul 
such  as  this  occupies  the  body,  not  only  shall  the  spec- 
tacle be  wondered  at  by  men,  but  even  by  angels." 
Miserable  teaching  this,  whether  catholic  or  not.  How 


260     CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

could  the  subject  of  any  such  rhapsody,  if  any  might 
actually  have  thought  herself  the  archetype  of  the  pic- 
ture, how  could  she  imagine  herself  obliged  to  listen, 
like  others,  to  the  humbling  doctrine  of  the  cross?  But 
such  as  was  the  teaching  and  the  system,  such  were  its 
practical  effects;  and  it  is  remarkable  that,  for  an  inge- 
nuous statement  of  these  effects,  we  need  go  no  farther 
than  to  the  two  tracts  above  named;  for  actually  within 
the  distance  of  a  page  or  two  from  the  place  where  this 
*' lump  of  molten  gold"  dazzles  tlie  eye,  we  find  de- 
scriptions barely  fit  to  be  translated,  of  the  ordinary 
night-scenes  in  a  Constanlinopolitan  convent,  or,  more 
properly,  ecclesiastical  fxa-wf-.Truv.  Could  noliiing  lead 
so  wise  and  good  a  man  as  Chrysostom  to  entertain  the 
suspicion  that  the  church  had,  in  this  instance  at  least, 
utterly  misunderstood  the  purport  and  spirit  of  the  gos- 
pel? 

Under  another  head  of  this  present  argument,  I  shall 
feel  it  unavoidable  to  revert  to  the  two  connected  tracts, 
from  one  of  which  the  above-cited  passage  is  taken : 
leaving,  therefore,  its  context  untouched  at  present — per- 
tinent though  it  be,  I  will  here  only  observe  that  the  quo- 
tation is  a  sample,  one  among  hundreds,  nay  thousands, 
which  might  be  easily  produced,  of  a  fault  generally 
characteristic  of  the  great  writers  (and  the  small  writers) 
of  the  ancient  church — I  mean  the  propensity  to  magni- 
fy and  glorify  what  is  merely  human;  in  fact,  to  worship 
and  to  deify  the  creature,  more  than  the  Creator;  that  is 
to  say,  so  to  magnify  human  virtue,  as  that,  upon  the 
general  field  of  the  people's  view,  the  encomium  of  man 
subtends  a  larger  angle,  than  the  praises  of  God,  and 
of  his  Christ.  Do  not  the  fatliers  then  worship  God.' 
do  they  not  adore  the  Son  of  God?  Assuredly:  but 
when  they  muster  all  the  forces  of  their  eloquence,  when 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  261 

they  catch  fire,  and  swell,  as  if  inspired,  whenever  (I  must 
be  permitted  to  make  the  allusion,  for  it  is  really  appro- 
priate,) whenever  they  take  their  seat  upon  the  tripod 
and  begin  to  foam,  the  subject  of  the  rhapsody  is  sure  to 
be — "  a  blessed  martyr,"  it  may  be  an  apostle;  or  a  re- 
cently departed  "  doctor,"  or,  "  a  virgin  confessor;"  or 
it  is  the  relics  of  such  a  one,  and  the  miraculous  virtues 
of  his  sacred  dust.  If,  in  turning  over  these  folios,  the 
eye  is  any  where  caught  by  the  frequency  of  interjec- 
tions, such  a  page  is  quite  as  likely  to  be  found  to  spar- 
kle and  flash  with  the  commendations  of  the  mother  of 
God,  or  of  her  companion  saints,  as  with  the  praises  of 
the  Son;  and  more  often  does  the  flood-tide  of  eloquence 
swell  with  the  mysterious  virtues  of  the  sacraments, 
than  with  the  power  and  grace  of  the  Saviour.  The 
Saviour  does  indeed  sit  enthroned  within  the  veil  of  the 
Christian  temple;  but  what  the  Christian  populace  hear 
most  about,  is — the  temple  itself,  and  its  embroideries, 
and  its  gildings,  and  its  ministers,  and  its  rites,  and  the 
saints  that  fill  its  niches.  In  a  word,  what  was  visible, 
and  what  was  human,  stood  in  front  of  what  is  invisible 
and  divine;  and  when  we  find  a  system  of  blasphemous 
idolatry  fully  expanded  in  the  middle  ages,  this  system 
cannot,  in  any  equity,  be  spoken  of  as  any  thing  else 
than  a  following  out  of  the  adulatory  rhapsodies  of  the 
great  writers  and  preachers  of  the  Nicene  church. 

Of  this  impious  adulation  the  martyrs  and  confessors 
were  the  first  objects;  and  then  came  those  "terrestrial 
seraphs,"  the  monks  and  virgins.  The  ancient  church, 
well  knowing  its  real  and  vast  superiority,  on  all  grounds 
•of  theological  truth,  and  moral  principle,  as  compared 
with  the  polytheistic  world,  or  with  the  schools  of  phi- 
losophy, and  yet  trampled  to  the  dust,  and  contemned, 
23 


262     CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

and  exposed  to  humiliations,  such  as  human  nature  very 
seldom  well  sustains,  sought  to  right  itself,  as  far  as  it 
could,  by  indulging  in  exaggerations  of  every  kind;  and 
no  sooner  did  it  get  the  upper  hand  of  its  enemies,  that 
is  to  say — its  abstract  Enemy,  and  its  personal  persecu- 
tors in  every  particular  vicinity,  than  it  gave  vent  to  its 
stifled  pride  and  resentment,  in  torrents  of  adulatory 
congratulation,  in  the  hurry  of  which  the  glory  of  God 
stood  in  abeyance,  while  the  vindicatory  praises  of  man 
were  to  be  uttered. 

In  advancing  this  general  allegation,  I  must  decline  to 
appeal,  for  support,  to  those   who,  by  a  long  and  fond 
converse  with  Christian  antiquity,  and  by  mere  familia- 
rity with  its  style,  have  ceased  to  feel  what  others  would 
most  painfully  be  conscious  of;  but  I  am  w'iliing  to  be 
judged  by  any  well-informed  persons,  of  sound  and  unda- 
maged mind,  who,  fraught  witli  genuine  Christian  senti- 
ments, and   hitherto   unacquainted   with   the  writers   in 
question,  shall    look   through  the  orations  of  the  most 
noted  of  them,  such,  I  mean,  as  Chrysostom,  Basil,  the 
two  Cregories,  Jerome,  and  Augustine.     On  what  oc- 
casions then  do  these   great   orators  and   doctors  kindle 
and  glow?     When  is   it  that  they  exhaust  the  powers 
of  language,  and  return  upon   their  tiieme,   as   if  they 
could  never  think  that  they  had  done  it  justice?  Is  it  when 
they  are  holding  forth,  before  the  multitude,  the  glory 
of  the  Saviour  of  sinners?     Is  it  when  they  are  blowing 
the  silver  trumpet  of  mercy,  in  the  hearing  of  the  guilty? 
Alas!  it  is  not  so.     The  Saviour,  not  denied  indeed,  but 
not  glorified,  is  left,   by  these   orators,  to   sleep  in  the 
hinder  part  of  the  ship:  or  he  is  imprisoned  in  the  creeds 
and  liturgies  of  the  church,  while  commendations,  which 
Grecian  and  Roman  sages  would  equally  have  loathed 
to  have  pronounced,  and  have  blushed  to  have  received. 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  263 

are  lavished  upon  the  heroes  of  the  church  and  its  an- 
chorets. 

Are  these  representations  fair  or  not?  I  appeal  to 
those  who  will  go  with  fresh  and  modern  Christian  feel- 
ings, into  the  company  of  the  fathers.  But  if  the  facts 
be  such  as  I  allege,  will  any  pretend  that  an  unaffected 
and  heart-stirring  proclamation  of  the  gospel — the  glad 
tidings  of  mercy,  free,  and  adapted  to  all  men's  accep- 
tation, was  likely  to  consist  with  so  much  bombast  and 
frippery,  about  the  merits,  miracles,  and  virtues  of  the 
shoals  of  saints  that  burden  the  calendar?  Two  such 
abhorrent  elements  will  never  coalesce;  and  if  the  church 
must  and  will  have  her  demi-gods,  to  adorn  her  state  in 
the  eyes  of  the  prostrate  multitude,  she  must  even  fore- 
go the  presence  of  her  Lord. 

A  dry,  polemic  orthodoxy,  severed  from  the  gospel, 
is  the  doctrinal  description  of  ancient  Christianity:  and 
I  here  refuse  to  be  put  to  silence  by  any  who  shall  re- 
turn the  phrase  "  the  gospel,"  upon  me,  as  if  I  used  it 
in  the  cant  sense  of  this,  or  that,  modern  sect;  and  as  if 
it  conveyed  some  restricted  and  special  scheme  of  doc- 
trine. By  the  gospel,  I  mean  nothing  more  or  less  than 
the  frank  declaration  of  God's  mercy  to  guilty  man,  as- 
suring to  him,  through  faith  in  Christ,  the  full  and  ab- 
solute remission  of  his  sins,  and  an  exemption  from  "all 
condemnation,"  and  fear  of  wrath.  I  do  not  affect  to 
speak  as  a  theologian;  nor  care  to  cut  and  trim  the 
phrases  I  may  employ,  so  as  shall  make  them  square 
with  this  or  that  "confession."  Does  the  Bible  offer 
no  broad  and  universally  intelligible  sense,  even  on  the 
most  momentous  subjects?  If  it  do,  then  it  does  so 
in  conveying,  to  the  troubled  conscience,  a  message  of 
joy — authentic,  simple,  efficacious,  and  such  as  subdues 
the  grateful  heart  to  obedience. 


264  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

— Now,  meaning  this  by — the  gospel,  I  affirm  that, 
from  beginning  to  end  of  the  patristic  remains,  the  clear- 
ness and  brightness  of  the  message  of  mercy  is  obscured, 
its  simplicity  encumbered,  and  its  efficacious  power  al- 
most entirely  nullified.  In  entering  the  awful  and  gor- 
geous edifice  of  the  ancient  church,  one's  feelings  are 
very  much  such  as  might  belong  to  a  descent  into  some 
stalactite  cavern,  the  grim  magnificence  of  which  is  never 
cheered  by  the  life-giving  beams  of  heaven;  for  there  is 
no  noon  there — no  summer.  The  wonders  of  the  place 
must  be  seen  by  the  glare  of  artificial  light;  human  hands 
carry  hither  and  thither  a  blaze,  which  confounds  ob- 
jects, as  much  as  reveals  them,  and  which  fills  the  place 
more  with  fumes  than  with  any  genial  influence.  In 
this  dim  theatre  forms  stand  out  of  more  than  mortal 
mien,  as  if  a  senate  of  divinities  had  here  assembled; 
but  approach  them — all  is  hard,  cold,  silent.  Drops  are 
thickly  distilling  from  the  vault;  nay,  every  stony  icicle 
that  glistens  in  the  light,  seems  as  if  endued  with  peni- 
tence, or  as  if  contrition  were  the  very  temper  of  the 
place:  but  do  these  drops  fertilize  the  ground  on  which 
they  fall?  No,  they  do  but  trickle  a  moment,  and  then 
add  stone  to  stone — chill  to  chill.  Does  the  involuntary 
exclamation  break  from  the  bosom  in  such  a  place — 
Surely  this  is  the  very  gate  of  heaven!  Rather  one  shud- 
ders with  the  apprehension  that  one  is  entering  the  sha- 
dows of  the  valley  of  death;  and  that  the  only  safety  is 
in  a  quick  return  to  the  upper  world. 

Negations  and  deficiencies  are  not  easily  to  be  set 
forth,  in  any  o'f  the  usual  modes  of  adducing  evidence; 
nor  is  it  to  be  supposed  that  the  general  allegation  of  a 
want  of  that  element  which  makes  the  gospel,  a  gospel, 
as  attaching  to  ancient  Christianity,  could  be  established 
by  the  citation  of  a  few  passages  collected  here  and 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  265 

there.  The  fact  alleged,  presents  itself  to  a  rightly  prin- 
cipled mind,  in  passing  up  and  down  through  the  patris- 
-ic  theology.  What  we  ought  to  meet  with  in  Christian 
writers,  we  do  not  find;  or  find  it  seldom,  and  find  it 
overlaid,  and  find  it  wrought  up  with  neutralizing  ingre- 
dients. I  will,  however,  endeavour  to  put  a  clue  into  the 
hand  of  the  diligent  student,  which  may  enable  him, 
with  less  labour  than  otherwise,  to  verify  or  to  correct 
the  averment  here  made,  namely.  That  the  religious  ce- 
libacy of  the  ancient  church,  springing  as  it  did  from  a 
gnosticised  theology,  excluded,  or  did  not  in  fact  consist 
with,  that  clear,  cordial,  efficacious,  announcement  of 
God's  free  mercy  to  a  guilty  world,  through  the  propi- 
tiating work  of  Christ,  which  is  the  characteristic  of  the 
inspired  scriptures,  and  which  it  has  pleased  God  to  re- 
vive, more  or  less  fully,  in  the  modern  church.  It  is  this 
heart-stirring  preaching  of  Christ  (no  imputation  of  em- 
ploying the  phrase  in  a  sectarian  sense,  shall  deter 
me  from  the  just  use  of  it)  it  is  this  which  makes 
Christianity  a  living  doctrine;  and  it  is  this,  of  which 
we  find  but  faint  and  feeble  indications,  look  where  we 
may,  among  the  early  writers.  Between  a  dialectic  and 
partisan  orthodoxy  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other,  a 
mystification  of  the  sacraments,  and  a  stern,  or  fanatical 
asceticism,  the  gospel  nearly  disappears.  Those  who 
have  known  what  it  is,  with  a  hand,  warm  with  health, 
to  take  within  their  own  the  hand  of  a  corpse,  know  how 
the  chill  ascends  to  the  heart,  and  enters  the  soul.  Of 
this  sort  is  the  feeling  with  which,  if  the  mind  be  quick- 
ened by  scriptural  piety,  it  makes  its  first  acquaintance 
with  the  body  of  ancient  Christianity. 

A  sample  or  two  of  each  of  those  kinds  of  evidence 
of  which  the  present  subject  is  susceptible,  I  shall  now 
adduce;  such,  for  instance,  as  formal  statements  of  be- 
23* 


2G6     CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

lief — expositions  of  scripture — panegyrics  of  distin- 
guished individuals,  and  accidental  expressions  of  reli- 
gious feeling.  Of  the  first,  we  may  take  the  following 
*'  Short  Summary  of  Christian  Belief,"  conveying  the 
faith  of  the  accomplished  Boethius,  an  orthodox,  whe- 
ther or  not  a  Christian  writer.  This  compendium, 
**  Brevis  Fidei  Christiana;  Complexio,"  aficr  defining 
the  Athanasian  doctrine,  as  opposed  to  the  several  chief 
heresies  of  the  times,  goes  on  with  an  historical  enume- 
ration of  the  leading  facts  of  Christianity,  up  to  the  mo- 
ment of  our  Lord's  ascension,  and  the  commission  given 
the  apostles,  to  evangelize  the  world,  and  then  adds, 
*'  and  whereas  the  human  race,  by  tlie  demerit  of  its  na- 
ture, derived  to  it  from  the  fault  of  the  first  sinner,  had 
become  pierced  with  the  darts  of  eternal  punishment, 
nor  was  suflicient  for  its  own  cure,  (or  salvation)  having 
lost  it  in  its  progenitor,  He  (Christ)  granted  to  it  certain 
REMEDIAL  SACRAMENTS,  to  the  end  that  it  (the  human 
race)  might  acknowledge  the  diflerence  between  what  it 
merited  by  nature,  and  what  it  received  by  gift  of  grace; 
and  that,  as  nature  could  bring  punishment  only,  grace, 
not  called  grace  if  granted  to  merit,  might  furnish  what- 
ever appertains  to  salvation." 

Such  is  the  sum  of  the  gospel,  according  to  Boethius, 
who  adds  not  a  word  more  concerning  the  scheme  of 
mercy.  It  may  be  said  that  he  affirms  salvation  to  be 
by  grace,  not  merit,  but  what  are  the  channels  or  the 
expressions  of  tiiis  grace  of  heaven?  Nothing  else  than 
the  remedial  sacraments,  in  duly  accepting  which,  from 
the  hand  of  the  priest,  guilty  men  receive  all  that  they 
have  any  need  to  think  of;  just  as  if  the  sacraments 
were  potent  drugs,  or  chemical  antidotes,  infallibly  dis- 
persing the  poison  inherited  from  Adam!  But  was  that 
which  animated  the  labours  of  the  apostles,  in  traversing 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  2G7 

kingdoms,  and  in  crossing  seas  to  proclaim  the  nnsearch- 
nble  riches  of  Christ,  was  it,  in  fact — to  impart  the  sa- 
craments, and  to  open,  in  every  country,  genuine  dis- 
pensaries of  these  panaceas  for  guilt  and  wo?  There 
may  be  those  who  will  not  hesitate  to  reply  in  the  affir- 
mative, and  who,  with  the  Pauline  epistles  before  them, 
will  nevertheless  profess  their  belief  that,  to  give  men 
every  where  a  ready  access  to  the  two  sacraments,  was 
the  object  and  completion  of  Paul's  unwearied  labours. 
There  are  those  who  will  say  this.  TJiank  God  there 
are  multitudes  who  have  read  their  Bibles  to  better  pur- 
pose, and  who,  while  happily  ignorant  of  ancient,  under- 
stand something  of  apostolic,  Christianity. 

When  a  question  is  in  progress  concerning  the  alleged 
absence  of  some  important  element  of  truth,  there  is  a 
convenience,  at  least,  in  referring  to  small,  and  yet  com- 
prehensive tracts,  which  may  soon  be  sifted.  Now, 
with  this  view,  we  might  take  up  again  the  often-quoterl 
commonitorium  of  Vincent  of  Lerins.  The  writer's  in- 
tention, and  a  commendable  one,  plainly  was,  to  afford 
to  a  Christian  man  the  ready  and  certain  means  of  an- 
swering, for  himself,  the  momentous  question — "  Am  I 
right  in  matters  of  faith?" — "  am  I  on  the  road  that  leads 
to  heaven?"  And  with  this  view  he  offers  rules,  well 
condensed,  and  carefully  guarded,  by  application  of 
which,  in  every  particular  instance  of  doubt,  a  Christian 
may  discriminate  between  catholic  truth,  and  heretical 
pravity,  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  novelty.  But  now 
the  whole  of  this  criterion  of  doctrine  turns  upon  the 
perfection  of  triniiarianism;  not  a  hint  is  dropped,  any 
where,  that  there  are  other  principles  essential  to  Chris- 
tianity, after  the  Nicene  faith  has  been  duly  secured.  A 
reader  of  this  tract  is  left  to  suppose  that,  if  he  do  but 
hold  the  doctrine  of  the  trinity,  ''  uncorrupt  and  entire^" 


268  CONNEXION  OF  THE   CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

nothing  farther  is  wanting  to  him: — he  is  then  a  Chris- 
tian— he  is  witiiin  the  pale  of  the  church,  and  as  safe  as 
all  are  on  board  a  ship  which  is  destined  to  reach  her 
port.  An  orthodoxy  purely  logical,  and  which  turns 
upon  nicely  trimmed  phrases,  came  in  the  place  of  the 
entire  Christianity  of  the  apostolic  writings.  Vincent's 
catholicity  has  no  more  warmtli,  no  more  vitality,  in  it 
than  Aristotle's  Ethics;  nay,  is  really  much  less  likely 
to  generate  sentiments  of  virtue.  There  is  not  in  this 
treatise  a  paragraph,  or  a  sentence  animated  by  a  refer- 
ence to  tlie  rich  mercy  of  God  in  the  gospel.  We  iind 
the  honours  of  the  Mother  of  God — the  Theotocos,  care- 
fully aiTirmed;  but  very  little  is  said  of  the  glory  of 
Christ  as  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  Be  it  observed 
then,  that,  while  a  dry  and  verbal  trinitarianism  M'ould 
well  eno\igh  hold  its  place  by  the  side  of  a  gnosticised 
and  ascetic  ethical  system,  the  life-giving  gospel,  speak- 
ing peace  to  the  troubled  conscience,  and  supplying  the 
motives  of  true  holiness,  in  the  doctrine  of  jusiificatioii 
by  faith,  this  doctrine,  which  sets  Christianity  in  utter 
contrariety  to  every  other  scheme  of  religion,  has  never 
consisted,  can  never  consist  with,  any  modification  of 
the  ascetic  system:  and  in  fact,  the  evangelical  glory 
faded  from  tl.e  view  of  the  ancient  churcli  at  the  moment 
when  the  oriental  philosophy  lodged  itself  within  its 
bosom:  from  that  time  forward  the  condition  of  tiie 
church  was  such  as  might  very  aptly  be  described  in  the 
language  which  Vincent  himself  applies  to  certain  half 
heretics — "half  dead,  half  alive,  who  have  swallowed 
just  such  a  quantity  of  poison  as  neither  kills  them,  nor 
may  be  digested,  nor  com.pels  them  to  die,  nor  suffers 
them  to  live." 

It  must  by  no  means  be  imagined  that  the  early  decay 
3nd  the  disappearance,  at  length,  of  the  evangelic  energy 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  2G9 

from  the  church,  is  attributable  solelv^  or  primarily,  to 
the  ascetic  doctrine,  and  to  the  celibacy  which  it  en- 
joined. To  preclude  any  such  supposition,  which,  in 
being  dispelled,  might  seem  to  weaken  my  argument,  I 
must,  in  passing,  advert  to  the  easily  established  fact, 
that  this  decay  had  commenced  before  the  time  when 
the  ascetic  practice  had  very  perceptibly  wrought  its 
own  effect  upon  the  opinions  and  sentiments  of  the 
Christian  body.  By  itself  indeed  it  was  enough  (when 
fully  expanded)  to  exclude  the  vital  element  of  Christi- 
anity; but  this  element  had  already  been  edged  off,  by 
little  and  little,  from  the  theological  system,  under  the 
operation  of  several  other  causes;  one  of  the  chief  of 
which,  plainly,  was  the  circumstance  that  Christianity, 
as  early,  at  the  latest,  as  the  middle  of  the  second  cen- 
tury, had  fallen  into  the  hands,  and  thenceforward  re- 
mained under  the  guardianship,  of  astute  dialecticians, 
and  wordy  sophists,  thoroughly  trained  in  the  intellec- 
tual gymnastics  of  the  Grecian  schools  of  philosophy, 
and  who,  while  they  found  in  the  trinitarian  doctrine  a 
field  well  enough  adapted  to  the  performance  of  the  evo- 
lutions in  which  they  excelled,  turned,  with  an  instinc- 
tive distaste,  from  the  Gospel^  the  ideas  and  sentiments 
connected  with  which  were  altogether  unmanageable,  as 
the  materials,  either  of  logical,  or  of  metaphysical  exer- 
cise. 

A  pertinent  exemplification  of  this  order  of  things,  in 
the  course  of  which  whatever,  in  the  Christian  scheme, 
was  the  most  nearly  allied  to  the  favourite  subjects  of 
pneumatology,  in  its  various  branches,  came  uppermost, 
while  the  evangelical  element  was  left  to  subside,  is  pre- 
sented in  Origen's  four  books,  vn^i  ^e,x^v.  This  work, 
of  which  indeed  we  should  speak  more  confidently  if  it 
had  come  down  to  us  in  the  author's  own  language,  and 


270  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

which  is  known  to  have  undergone  some  trimming 
under  tlie  hand  of  Rufinus,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for 
the  Latin  version  now  extant — this  work  professes  to 
present  a  digest  of  Christian  principles,  as  its  title  im- 
ports; and,  in  fact,  along  with  the  questionable  opinions 
of  the  benign-minded  writer,  it  sets  forth,  as  then  under- 
stood, the  orthodox  faith,  and  moreover  argues  all  those 
topics  of  religion  to  which  the  dialectic  and  metaphysic 
apparatus  was  really  applicable. — And  there  it  stops; — 
nothing— literally  nothing,  beyond  a  mere  phrase,  does 
Origen  find  to  say  about  the  scheme  of  reconciliation — ■ 
the  means,  process,  freeness,  sufficiency,  or  divine  rich- 
ness, of  "the  redemption  that  is  in  Christ."  Again  and 
pgain  we  are  told  in  this  treatise,  that,  at  the  last,  all 
men  will  be  dealt  with,  pro  meritis.  Let  this  be  true; 
but  there  is  another  trutli,  which  the  contrite  reader  of 
the  New  Testament  thinks  he  finds  clearly  affirmed 
there,  but  which  no  reader  of  the  ♦' De  principiis" 
would  ever  surmise  to  have  belonged  to  the  system 
whicli  Origen  was  expounding. 

The  suppression  of  tlie  gospel,  under  the  hand  of  the 
ancient  masters  of  logic  and  pneumatology,  is  however 
a  subject,  highly  important  as  it  may  be,  wliich  is  foreign 
to  my  present  purpose,  and  to  which  I  have  here  advert- 
ed only  in  order  to  anticipate  an  objection,  as  if  I  were 
attributing  to  the  ascetic  doctrine  an  extent  of  influence 
which  may  be  shown  to  have  arisen  from  more  sources 
than  one.     Let  then  this  be  understood. 

Another  probable  objection  I  must  also  exclude.  In 
adducing  \.he  polemic  treatises  of  the  ancient  church,  as 
affi)r(ling  instances  of  ihe  alleged  decay  of  evangelic 
principles  and  feeling,  it  may  be  said,  that  the  appeal  is 
neither  fair  nor  conclusive,  inasmuch  as  it  does  not  al- 
low for  the  peculiar  position  of  the  church,  as  called 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  271 

upon  by  the  heresies  of  the  times,  most  of  which  bore 
upon  the  trinitarian  doctrine,  to  insist  ahnost  exclusively 
upon  subjects  of  that  abstruse  class:  M^hereas  (it  may  be 
said)  only  let  us  look  to  these  same  writers  when  they 
had  laid  aside  their  weapons,  or  to  those  of  their  col- 
leagues who  stood  off  from  the  contest,  and  we  shall 
find  that  they  understood,  and  personally  rejoiced  in, 
and  warmly  promulgated,  evangelic  principles  even  as 
the  apostles  themselves. 

A  counter-statement  such  as  this,  if  it  could  be  sub- 
stantiated, or  even  made  to  appear  probably  correct, 
ought  to  be  at  once  yielded  to.  Nothing  can  be  more 
equitable  than  the  general  principle  on  which  it  proceeds. 
But  can  it  be  made  good?  In  a  word,  is  there  any  rea- 
son to  believe  that  the  great  champions  of  orthodoxy,  or 
that  their  less  distinguished  contemporaries,  when  not 
engaged  in  repelling  the  assaults  of  heretics,  tliought  and 
spoke  more,  or  with  greater  energy,  and  vivacity,  of  the 
doctrines  of  reconciliation,  than  may  be  gathered  from 
the  tenor  of  their  polemical  writings?  With  the  hope 
of  resolving  this  question,  I  shall  now  move  into  a  posi- 
tion, so  to  speak,  alongside  of  the  ancient  church — look- 
ing at  it  on  those  special  occasions  which,  if  any  could, 
must  be  held  to  be  proper  for  displaying  the  real  and 
intimate  feelings  of  individuals,  and  of  the  community 
they  belonged  to.  I  proceed  then  to  examine  ancient 
Christianity  in  the  concrete;  that  is  to  say,  as  imbodied 
in  the  characters  and  sentiments  of  eminent  individuals;; 
and  these  individuals,  we  take  as  their  portraits  have 
been  drawn  by  the  most  distinguished  of  their  contem- 
poraries. AVhen  a  Christian  writer  undertakes  to  com- 
pose the  panegyric  of  a  departed  friend,  or  eminent 
teacher,  whom  he,  and  others,  consider  to  have  reached 


272     CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

as  near  to  the  point  of  perfection  as  is  ever  permitted  to 
humanity,  in  the  present  state,  it  is  natural,  nay  inevi- 
table, tiiat,  in  arranging  the  materials  of  his  eulogy,  he 
should  so  place  foremost  what,  in  his  esteem,  are  indeed 
the  principal  excellencies  of  the  Christian  character,  as 
shall  make  manifest  his  own  notions  of  the  general 
sciieme  of  Christian  doctrine  and  practice:  in  other 
words,  such  a  panegyric,  especially  when  elaborate,  and 
when  it  has  evidently  been  well  considered,  may  fairly 
be  regarded  as  imbodying  the  writer's  confession  of 
faith,  dogmatic  and  ethical,  only  put  in  the  concrete 
form.  1  propose  then  to  look  into  two  or  three  of  the 
principal  writers  of  the  Nicene  age,  either  citing,  or  re- 
ferring to,  the  most  remarkable  of  those  eulogistic  or 
funereal  compositions  with  which  they  abound;  only 
reminding  the  reader  that  these  great  writers  and 
preachers  are  never  more  at  home,  than  while  exhaust- 
ing their  rhetorical  powers  upon  themes  of  this  particu- 
lar description;  and  I  will  ask,  at  the  outset,  whether 
iliere  is  not  a  good  probability,  on  all  grounds  of  philo- 
sophical, I  mean  genuine^  reasoning,  that,  in  this  line 
of  evidence,  we  shall  catch  what  was  indeed  the  temper, 
character,  and  tendency  of  ancient  Christianity;  our  im- 
mediate object  being  to  inquire  whether  the  divine  rich- 
ness, and  the  distinguishing  glory  of  Christianity,  as  the 
revelation  of  God's  mercy  to  a  lost  world,  occupied  the 
place  due  to  it,  in  the  view  of  the  writers  in  question? 
and  then,  if  the  contrary  appears  to  be  the  fact,  we 
shall  have  the  opportunity  of  seeing  whether  the  fore- 
most place  which  the  gospel  should  have  filled,  is  not 
in  fact  usurped  by  those  gnostic  and  ascetic  principles 
of  which  celibacy  was  the  core. 

In  this  case,   the   question  being — Whether   certain 


SCHEME  OF  SALVaTIOX.  273 

compositions,  many  of  ihem  of  considerable  length,  do, 
or  do  not,  comprise  certain  elements  of  truth,  there 
are  only  two  methods  of  proceeding  that  can  be  ac- 
cepted as  conclusive,  the  one  being  that  of  producing 
the  entire  tract,  oration,  or  epistle;  and  the  other,  that 
of  giving  the  studious  reader  such  references  as  may  fa- 
cilitate his  obtaining  satisfaction,  on  the  point,  for  him- 
self. It  is  manifest  that  the  former  method  is,  in  the 
present  instance,  altogether  inadmissible,  inasmuch  as 
it  must  swell  this  tract  to  the  dimensions  of  a  bulky  vo- 
lume. I  must,  therefore,  content  myself  with  the  lat- 
ter, and,  in  adopting  it,  will  express  my  very  earnest 
wish  that  those  who,  at  this  time,  may  be  preparing 
themselves  to  accept  ancient  Christianity,  in  the 
stead  of  apostolic  Ciiristianity,  would  first,  and  before 
they  come  to  so  latal  a  decision,  give  themselves  the 
pains  to  follow  the  clue  I  am  puttin:;  into  their  hands, 
and  to  read  through  and  through,  the  pieces  to  which 
I  shall  refer.  Can  it  be  denied  that  this  particular  line  of 
evidence  is  very  likely  to  expose  (or  say,  exhibit)  the 
true  character  of  ancient  Christianity?  We  are  taking 
the  church  by  surprise,  not  unfairly  indeed,  but  just 
when  it  is  sitting  for  its  portrait,  blushing  and  toying  be- 
fore some  enamoured  and  favoured  Zeuxis  or  Apelles. 
Will  an  opponent  choose  to  stake  the  credit  of  the  Ni- 
cene  age  on  this  very  ground?  I  suppose  not;  but  I 
think  that  those  v.-ho  iiave  studied  human  nature,  and 
who  are  accustomed  to  generalize  upon  the  materials  of 
history,  will  grant  that  the  use  now  to  be  made  of  the 
patristic  literature,  is  legitimate,  and  pertinent  to  our  ar- 
gument. 

I  will  begin  with  a  very  sober  writer — a  stanch  as- 
cetic indeed,  and  such  a  one  as  Evagrius,  the  historian, 
24 


274  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

(lib.  i.  cnp.  15,)  calls  a  "living  column,  holding  forth 
the  peilcMrlion  of  the  jnonastic  and  contemplative  life." 
1  liave  already  quoted  him — Isidore  of  Pelusium,  a  bi- 
shop, and  the  intimate  friend  of  Chrysostom,  as  well  as 
of  the  chief  ecclesiastics  of  hiy  time,  and  who,  if  any 
did  so,  understood  well  the  religious  system,  dogmatic 
and  practical,  of  his  age.  He  has  bequeathed  to  our 
limes  two  thovisand,  one  hundi-ed,  and  eighty-three  epis- 
tles, or  short  commentaries  and  notes,  upon  subjects  of 
all  kinds  naturally  coming  within  the  range  of  a  church- 
man of  ihtit  age.  Punctiliously  orthodox,  and  moreover 
professing  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  or  propitiato- 
ry work  of  Christ,  here  and  there,  in  unexceptionable 
terms;  as  for  instance,  in  the  73d  and  lOOih  epistles  of 
the  fourtli  book,  and  yet,  much  more  often  writing  like 
a  mere  stoic,  or  a  Flalonist,  whose  style  glitters  with  a 
few  shreds  of  Christian  truth. 

This  Isidore  (lib.  ii.  epist.  151)  undertakes  v^ilh  much 
diffidence,  and  almost  in  despair,  the  epitaphium  of  a 
defunct  brollier,  whom  he  speaks  of  as  having  reached 
the  very  acme  of  perfection,  and  with  whose  various 
praises  he  fills  a  folio  page:  "  better  was  he  than  all 
praise,  the  temple  of  sobriety,  the  home  of  prudence, 
the  tower  of  virtue,  the  metropolis  of  righteousness,  the 
cell  of  philanthropy,  the  sacred  enclosure  of  gentleness; 
and  to  say  all  in  a  word,  the  treasury  of  all  the  virtues." 
Tiien  follows  the  catalogue  of  these  virtues,  the  fore- 
most being  a  tyrannous  mastery  of  the  bodily  appetites, 
^aiTTpsf,  KAt  Tcnv  juiTA  ycim^A  TTuSuv  j  aud  tlic  last,  a  moclcst 
and  retiring  munificence  toward  the  poor.  The  bare 
word  Chrifitiun,  does  indeed  once  occur  in  this  eulogy; 
but  it  contains  not  so  much  as  a  syllable  besides,  whicli 
would  enable  the  reader  to  guess  that  the  subject  of  it 
was  any  other,  or  any  better  than  many  a  Mahometan 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  275 

dervish  has  been; — not  a  word  concerning- an  hnmble  re- 
liance upon  the  merits  of  the  Saviour;  not  a  word  indi- 
cating it  as  the  belief  of  this  saint,  that  the  best  of  men 
must,  at  the  last,  stand  with  the  most  imperfect,  as  owing 
every  thing  to  sovereign  mercy;  not  a  word  savouring 
of  the  temper  of  the  apostles:  but,  on  the  contrary,  the 
whole  tends  to  convey  and  support  the  opinion  that  no- 
thing could  be  wanting  to  those  who  pursued  a  spotless 
ascetic  course,  but  just  to  drop  the  bvurov,  and  then  to 
take  their  place  among  serapiis.  Is  this  Christianity? 
but  it  is  the  common  style  of  the  ancient  epitaphic  elo- 
quence. Not  without  reluctance,  1  must  again  call  the 
venerable  Athanasius  into  court. 

And  yet,  who  sliall  show  cause  why  we  should  not 
bring  evidence  in  illustration  of  the  character  of  Nicene 
Christianity  from  the  writings  of  Athanasius? — if  not, 
where  at  all  is  any  such  evidence  to  be  found?  But  if 
this  be  unexceptionable  and  pertinent  testimony,  then, 
while  we  turn  to  this  great  man's  polemic  and  dogmatic 
writings,  in  order  to  find  there  the  abstract  Christianity 
of  the  times,  what  better  can  we  do  than  seek  for  the 
concrete — the  living  and  imbodied  Christian  excellence, 
in  an  elaborate  and  encomiastic  biography,  by  the  same 
hand,  of  one  whom  Athanasius  holds  up  to  the  church 
as  a  pattern  of  Christian  perfection,  and  who  also  was 
in  fact  so  esteemed  by  the  church  catholic.  We  turn 
then  to  the  life  of  St.  Antony,  and  in  doing  so,  I  must 
clear  the  way  for  the  inference  I  have  in  view.  St.  An- 
tony, with  his  picturesque  infernal  legions,  has  become 
the  jest  of  modern  times,  and  is  thought  of,  much  ra- 
ther as  an  excellent  subject  for  Flemish  art,  than  in  any 
more  serious  connexion.  Or  if  his  name  has  occurred 
on  the  page  of  modern  church  history,  it  has  been  hasti- 
ly dismissed,  with  a  word  or  two  of  philosophic  scorn. 


276  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

But  this  loose  style  of  treating  such  subjects,  will  not 
serve  us  any  longer;  inasmuch  as  we  are  now  called 
upon  to  look  narrowly  into  many  things  which,  awhile 
ago,  might,  without  damage,  have  slept  on,  in  the  ob- 
scurity that  so  well  befits  their  intrinsic  merits. 

This  St.  Antony  then,  the  transcendental  prince  of  the 
ancient  monkery,  drew  toward  himself  the  wondering 
eyes  of  all  Christendom,  from  the  east  to  the  remotest 
west;  and  he  was  allowed  to  have  touched  the  point  of 
Christian  perfection  as  nearly  as  may  be  thought  possi- 
ble to  any  in  the  present  life.  Multitudes,  animated  by 
his  example,  rushed  into  the  desert,  and  trod  his  steps. 
His  universal  reputation  obtained  for  him  the  title  of  the 
♦'  Patriarch  of  Monks."  If  then  we  were  to  go  no  far- 
ther, but,  resting  upon  the  unquestionable  rule,  that 
whatever,  in  any  age,  is  the  object  of  universal  esteem 
and  admiration,  may  be  taken  as  a  sure  indication  of  the 
taste  and  the  opinions  of  that  age,  we  might,  without  any 
hazard  of  error,  consider  this  sam.e  pattern-saint  of  the 
ancient  church,  as  a  fair  sample  of  the  feelings  and  no- 
tions of  that  church.  Who  can  except  against  the  use 
of  such  a  criterion?  But  this  is  not  all.  It  might  in- 
deed so  have  been,  that,  although  our  ascetic  hero  had 
become  the  idol  of  the  vulgar  of  the  Christian  commu- 
nity, he  yet  stood  low  in  the  esteem  of  the  well-informed 
leaders  of  the  church;  and,  if  not  openly  condemned  by 
them,  yet  was  but  coldly  approved,  and  his  extrava- 
gances pointed  to  in  the  way  of  caution.  The  fact  is 
the  very  reverse;  for,  in  the  first  place,  the  great,  and 
strong-minded  Athanasius — thechief  of  the  "first  three," 
in  the  esteem  of  the  modern  admirers  of  antiquity-^ 
charges  himself  with  tlie  task  of  giving  this  eminent  ex- 
ample of  more  than  human  sanctity,  to  the  Christian 
world,   in   the  form  of  a   verv  elaborate   and   carefully 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  277 

xjomposed  memoir,  occupying  not  less  than  fifty-four 
folio  pasfes.  Here  then  is  the  portrait  of  a  picked  an- 
cient Christian  (so  called)  at  full  length,  and  from  the 
pencil  of  the  greatest  master  of  the  age.  May  we  not 
learn  something  of  what  ancient  Christianity  was,  in 
looking  at  this  picture?  But  we  do  not  yet  state  the 
whole  case;  for  we  find  each  great  writer  of  the  Nicene 
age,  bowing  in  his  turn,  and  worshipping  this  same 
idol: — Nazianzeu,  Jerome,  Augustine,  Chrysostom.  The 
language  of  the  latter  is  so  pertinent  to  my  argument, 
that  1  cannot  but  cite  it.  "  And  truly,  if  you  will  visit 
the  Egyptian  deserts,  you  will  find  there  what  is  better 
than  any  paradise:  there  you  will  find,  in  human  form, 
innumerable  choirs  of  angels— tribes  of  martyrs,  assem- 
blages of  nuns;  in  a  word,  the  tyrannous  empire  of  Satan 
brought  to  nothing,  and  the  kingdom  of  Christ  shining 
forth:"*  and  after  much  more  in  the  same  strain,  the  elo- 
quent preacher  goes  on  to  introduce  St.  Antony,  "  whom," 
after  the  apostles,  Egypt  *'  has  produced,  bles5>ed  and 
great;"  and  whose  lile,  as  related  by  Athaaasius,  is  said 
to  hold  forth  all  that  the  Christian  institute  "  oi  rev  Xpia-- 
Toy  Koyoi^'  demands.  What  more  than  this  can  we  re- 
quire, as  authorizing  the  course  we  are  taking,  in  consi- 
dering the  lile  of  St.  Antony,  by  Athanasius,  as  a  com- 
plete sample  of  ancient  Christianity? 

I  heartdy  wish  that,  with  this  very  view,  the  entire 
piece  were  perused  by  whoever  is  still  admiring,  and 
yet  has  a  misgiving  concerning,  the  gay  bubble — anti- 
quity. The  question  is — Did  the  ancient  celibacy  and 
its  concomitants,  consist  with,  and  promote,  evangelic 
doctrine  and  feeling,  or  did  it  thoroughly  exclude  and 
nullify  both!     And  if  this  question  be  answered,  as  I  am 

*  Horn.  VIII.  in  Matth.,  torn.  vii.  pp.  147,  149. 

24* 


278  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE   WITH  THE 

sure  it  must,  we  shall  still  by  no  means  be  compelled  to 
deny  sincerity,  and  a  species  of  devotion,  and  a  liigh 
measure  of  certain  of  the  Christian  virtues,  to  St.  Antony, 
and  to  those  like  him.  'J'he  memoir  before  us  may,  in 
fact,  be  read  with  pleasure,  and  even  editication,  taken 
for  just  so  much  as  it  is  worth;  but  as  an  exemplar  of 
the  Christian  character,  one  may  find  as  good,  nay,  some 
much  better,  among  the  monkish  records  of  the  worst 
times  of  Romanism.  In  all  these  fifty-fonr  pages,  scarce- 
ly so  much  as  one  sentence  meets  the  eye  of  a  kind  to 
recall  any  notions  or  sentiments  which  are  distinctively 
Christian.  There  is  indeed  an  unimpeachable  ortho- 
doxy and  a  thorough-going  submissiveness  in  regard  to 
church  authority;  and  there  is  a  plenty  of  Christianized 
soofTeeism,  and  tiiere  is  more  than  enough  of  deir.ono- 
logy,  and  quite  enough  of  miracle;  but  barely  a  word 
concerning  the  ])ropiliatory  work  of  Christ:  barely  a  word 
indicating  any  personal  feeling  of  the  ascetic's  own  need 
of  that  propitiation,  as  the  ground  of  his  hope.  Not  a 
word  of  justification  by  faith;  not  a  word  of  the  gracious 
influence  of  the  Spirit,  in  renewing  and  cleansing  the 
heart;  not  a  word  responding  to  any  of  those  signal  pas- 
sages of  scripture  which  make  tlie  gospel  "  glad  tidings  " 
to  guilty  man.  Drop  a  very  few  phrases  borrowed  from 
the  scriptures,  and  substitute  a  few,  drawn  from  the 
Koran,  and  then  tiiis  memoir  of  St.  Antony,  by  Aihana- 
sius,  might  serve,  as  to  its  temper,  spirit,  and  substance, 
nearly  as  well  for  a  Maliometan  dervish,  as  for  a  Chris- 
tian saint.  The  sort  of  piety  herein  exhibited  has  grown 
up  under  almost  all  religious  systems,  and  samples  of  ii, 
more  or  less  refined,  may  be  discovered  in  every  age 
and  country  where  the  religious  instinct  has  been  pow- 
erfully developed. 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  279 

Although  the  task  would  be  far  from  a  pleasing  one, 
it  might,  at  this  time,  be  a  useful  undertaking,  to  give  to 
the  Christian  world  this  life  of  St.  Antony,  without  re- 
trenchment; appending  to  it,  by  way  of  foil,  a  memoir  or 
two,  of  the  worthies  and  martyrs  of  our  English  refor- 
mation. None  could  fail  to  discern,  in  a  contrast  so 
violent  as  this,  the  vast,  the  immeasurable  difference  be- 
tween that  apostolic  Christianity  which,  by  the  divine 
mercy,  was  restored  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  that 
ancient  Christianity — the  sooffeeism  of  the  Nicene  age, 
which  we  are  now  called  upon,  by  the  Oxford  divines, 
to  put  in  its  room!  In  a  parallel  such  as  I  am  now  sup- 
posing, there  would  be  points  of  agreement,  good  and 
bad;  as,  for  instance,  the  ancient  ascetics,  and  the  modern 
reformers,  were  alike  pure  in  their  orthodoxy;  both, 
moreover,  were  encumbered  and  depressed  by  a  demo- 
nological  belief,  grotesque  enough:  and  let  it  hn  added, 
that  the  one,  as  well  as  the  other,  held  their  faith  as 
Christians  with  a  firmness  which,  when  occasions  arose, 
-carried  them  manfully  through^ tortures  and  death.  But 
how  vast  is  the  difference  still!  The  one,  in  surrender- 
ing themselves  (as  the  church  universal  had  done)  to  the 
old  oriental  illusion,  or,  as  we  must  call  it,  the  gnostic 
principle,  had  lost  their  hold  of  all  but  the  slenderest 
remnants  of  that  evangelic  system  which,  recovered  by 
a  return  to  the  scriptures,  imparted  to  the  others — the 
reformers,  a  vitality,  a  force,  a  feeling,  truly  apostolic. 
It  is  impossible  not  to  feel,  when  the  two  sets  of  men 
are  placed  in  close  comparison,  that  the  one  ^re  mere 
drivellers,  doting  insuperably  about  the  merest  trifles; 
while  the  others,  whatever  trifles  they  might  at  times 
strive  to  invest  with  importance,  nevertheless  acted 
and  spoke  and  wrote  like  men  and  like  Christians 
of  the  apostolic  school.     Is  there  a  mind  so  infatuated 


"280  CONNEXION  Of  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

as  that  it  could,  while  referring  to  the  temper  and  cha* 
racter  of  Paul  as  a  standard,  set  by  the  side  of  it  the 
puppet  Saint  Antony,  and  our  Latimer  or  Ridley;  and 
then  choose  and  prefer  tiie  former!  and  yet  we  are 
now  taught  to  think  and  speak  of  the  reformers  either 
with  a  hesitating  approval,  or  even  as  worthy  of  our  con- 
tempt, if  not  hatred,  while  we  are  enjoined  to  go  back  a 
fourteen  hundred  years,  and  to  gather  our  Christianity 
anew  from  the  lips  of  the  idiot  ascetics  of  the  Nicene  age, 
or  of  the  blind  doctors  who  worshipped  them! 

It  is  not  to  be  imagined  that  the  most  intelligent  body 
of  clergy  in  Europe  should  give  ear,  for  more  than  a 
moment, — a  moment  of  illusion, — to  advice  such  as 
this, — advice  so  pernicious, — and  yet  not  more  perni- 
-cious,  than  it  is  perverse  and  unullerably  absurd. 

But  the  point  we  are  here  engaged  wiih  is  of  such  im- 
portance, and  it  so  nearly  touches  the  marrow  of  the  con- 
troversy now  on  fool,  that  I  must  pursue  it  a  liille  far- 
ther, and,  in  doing  so,  it  will  be  at  once  curious  and  in- 
structive to  turn  from  the  life  of  St.  Antony,  by  Alha- 
nasins,  to  the  portrait  of  a  far  belter  and  wiser  man, 
drawn  by  a  greater  master  than  even  Alhanasius— -I 
mean  the  portrait  of  this  same  Alhanasius,  as  given  to 
us  very  elaborately  by  tiie  eloquent  Nazinnzen. 

Why  should  we  hesitate  to  look  into  a  formal  and  au- 
thoritative panegyric  of  the  best  and  greatest  man  of  the 
ancient  church,  as  imbodying,  more  or  less  distinctly, 
every  principal  element  of  the  religious  system  of  the 
times?  It  is  thus,  in  fact,  that  ihe  orator,  in  this  instance, 
regards  the  task  he  has  undertaken.  (See  Nazianzcn's 
twenty-first  oration.)  "  In  praising  Alhanasius,  I  shall 
be  praising  virtue  itself;  for,  in  speaking  of  him,  in 
whom  were  summed  up  all  the  virtues,  nay,  rather,  who 
iiow  possesses  all,  I  commend  all  in  one."    I  must  here 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  281 

pass  over  the  exordium,  presenting,  as  it  does,  a  piously 
worded  sample  of  the  gnostic  style  of  the  age,  and 
which  describes  the  blessedness  of  the  "  genuine  philo- 
sophy." Now,  let  it  be  granted  that,  in  the  peculiar  in- 
stance of  this  great  champion  of  orthodoxy,  the  merits 
of  Athanasius,  as  such,  should  be  made  the  prominent 
subject  of  his  encomium:  yet,  would  it  not  seem  as  if 
some  single  sentence,  or  even  solitary  phrase,  calling  up 
the  recollection  of  those  truths  which  are  the  life  of 
Christianity,  and  its  distinction,  might  well  have  found 
a  place  in  the  orator's  elaborate  panegyric?  The  perso- 
nal virtues  of  the  saint  are  particularly  enumerated,  and 
various  excellences  of  his  character,  beside  his  ortho- 
doxy, are  fervidly  extolled;  yet  there  do  not  meet  the 
eye,  in  the  whole  composition,  filling  four  and  twenty 
folio  pages,  hardly  three  words,  which  could  suggest  to 
an  uninformed  reader  the  idea  that  Christianity  comprised 
any  element  distinguishing  it  from  the  Grecian  philoso- 
phy— the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  excepted.  Few  traces 
do  we  here  find  of  the  gospel;  and  no  allusion,  ever  so 
remote,  to  the  doctrines  which  are  the  main  subjects  of 
the  Pauline  epistles.  Or  to  come  nearer  home,  never 
would  it  be  surmised,  from  any  thing  occurring  in  this 
oration,  that  there  are  principles  of  Christian  belief,  such 
as  those  so  clearly  imbodied  in  the  9th,  10th,  11th,  15th, 
17th,  and  31st  articles  of  the  English  church.  Grant 
it,  that  we  should  not  demand,  in  a  commemorative  ora- 
tion, a  logical  synopsis  of  doctrine;  but  may  we  not  de- 
mand, from  a  Christian  preacher,  and  a  bishop,  that,  as 
often  as  he  stands  before  the  people,  he  should  afford 
them  the  means  of  knowing  that  his  own  heart,  as  a 
harp  in  tune,  responds,  in  all  its  wires,  to  the  harmony 
of  heaven?     Can  we  imagine  any  one  of  the  leaders  of 


282  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

the  English  reformation  to  have  pronounced  Nazianzen's 
21st  oration?  or  would  any  one  of  them  have  concluded 
any  such  harangue,  had  they  pronounced  it,  with  an  in- 
vocation of  the  dead  Athanasius,  now  to  look  down  upon 
him  with  favour,  and  to  aid  him  in  the  government  of 
his  church!  No  such  incongruity,  no  such  contradiction, 
can  be  even  imagined  to  have  had  place;  for  every  one 
feels  that  Nazianzen's  Christianity,  and  the  Christianity 
of  Jewell,  Cranmer,  Ridley,  Latimer,  Hooper,  were 
two  systems,  the  one  excluding,  or  forgetting,  that  which 
the  other  made  the  most  account  of;  the  one  dry,  ab- 
struse, extravagant,  turgid,  formal,  vapid;  the  other,  cor- 
dial, rich,  efficacious;  and,  if  tinged  with  superstition, 
yet  immeasurably  more  concerned  with  the  momentous 
realities  than  with  the  mere  rites  of  piety. 

It  would  be  an  error  of  serious  consequence  to  sup- 
pose that  the  zealous  archbishop  of  Alexandria  was  no 
better  a  Christian  than  we  might  gather  reasons  for 
thinking  him,  from  the  language  of  his  panegyrist.  His 
various  writings  forbid  any  such  comfortless  supposi- 
tion. Athanasius  was  not  only  better  than  Nazianzen's 
portrait  of  him;  but  better,  and  the  same  may  be  said  in 
a  thousand  instances,  than  his  own  notions  of  Christi- 
anity (considered  as  a  system)  would  have  made  him. 
While  he  and  his  contemporaries  took  up  the  foreign 
gnostic  element,  the  presence  of  which  deranged  the 
entire  scheme  of  the  gospel  economy,  he  and  they,  or 
many  of  them,  so  retained  their  hold,  personally,  of  its 
genuine  and  vitalizing  principles,  as  that  they  still  drew 
sap  enough  from  the  vine  to  adorn  their  branches  with 
clusters  of  fruit.  We  may  properly  denounce  and  reject 
a  particular  form  of  Christianity,  without  being  com- 
pelled to  unchrislianize  those  who  have  known  nothing 
better. 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION*  283 

But  I  must  return  a  moment  to  Nazianzen.  It  might 
be  thought,  and  with  some  appearance  of  reason,  that, 
on  so  special  an  occasion  as  the  one  above  referred  to, 
and  when  he  had  to  hold  up,  to  popular  admiration,  the 
great  champion  of  orthodoxy,  the  one  prominent  subject, 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  would  naturally  exclude 
other  topics  of  theoretic  or  practical  theology.  Let  it 
be  granted  then;  and  on  this  supposition,  we  can  do  no 
better  than  turn  from  the  panegyric  of  Alhanasius,  to 
that  of  Cyprian.  In  this  instance  at  least,  the  remote- 
ness of  the  subject  from  any  local,  temporary,  ecclesi- 
astical, or  theological  interest,  may  fairly  be  held  to 
have  exempted  the  orator  from  any  such  preoccupation 
of  mind,  as  might  have  precluded  the  full  and  sponta- 
neous expression  of  his  feelings,  as  a  Christian.  The 
eulogium  of  the  martyr  of  Carthage,  is  surely  open 
ground;  and  in  this  instance  we  shall  not  fail  to  discover 
those  features  of  Christianity  which  were  foremost  in 
the  view  of  the  speaker. 

Of  what  sort  then  is  this  florid  oration?  (the  18th.) 
Not  a  whit  more  evangelical  tlian  the  one  already  re- 
ferred to.  Utterly  devoid  is  it  of  those  notions  and  modes 
of  feeling  which,  in  the  strictest  and  most  proper  sense, 
are  Christian.  A  dry,  punctilious  orthodoxy,  with  more 
than  a  spice  of  offensive  superstition,  are  its  character- 
istics: there  is  indeed,  what  we  may  find  elsewhere,  and 
among  heathen  philosophers,  a  high  contempt  of  the 
world,  and  of  its  pomps,  luxuries,  and  vanities;  but  there 
is  not  even  a  beam  of  that  splendour — the  radiance  of 
heaven,  which,  in  the  scriptures  themselves,  gladdens 
the  hearts  of  the  contrite.  If  the  ten  lines  concerning 
Christ,  the  "  protomartyr,"  may  be  urged  in  mitigation 
of  this  averment,  let  them  be  produced;  but  they  amount 
only  to  a  profession  which   no  Christian  could  avoid 


284     CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

making;  and  such  a  turn  is  given  to  the  allusion  to  the 
sufferings  of  Christ,  as  serves  to  ally  the  doctrine  of 
the  atonement  with  the  dim  theology  of  the  times. 
"  Many  things  there  are  indeed,  which  tend  to  lead  us 
into  the  better  way;  and  many  which  train  us  in  virtue, 
such  as  reason,  law,  the  prophets,  the  apostles,  and  even 
the  sufferings  of  Christ,  the  protomartyr,  who  ascended 
the  cross,  leading  me  thither,  that  he  might  attach  to  it 
my  sin,  and  triumph  over  the  serpent,  and  sanctify  the 
tree,  and  vanquish  pleasure,  and  rescue  Adam,  and  re- 
store the  fallen  image  (of  God  in  man.)" 

Let,  however,  this  profession  pass  for  as  much  as  it 
can  be  worth,  conjoined  with  what  follows;  and  I  do 
not  see  another  line  that  is  equally,  or  in  any  proper 
sense,  evangelic.  But  what  is  it  that  follows?  Such 
things  as  these — a  love  story  (whence  derived  does  not 
appear)  but  the  purport  of  which  is,  that  Cyprian,  be- 
fore his  conversion,  being  desperately  enamoured  of  a 
beautiful  nun,  had  pursued  iier  so  importunately  as  to 
reduce  her  almost  to  despair.  In  this  terrible  extremity, 
to  whom  should  she  have  recourse,  but  to  the  blessed 
Mary,  the  queen  and  patroness  of  virgins:  not  indeed  as 
if  forgetting  God,  and  her  Saviour — iin  tov  6siv  xaT:t<p£i>>ei; 
but,  as  the  readiest  and  surest  means  of  obtaining  im- 
mediate assistance.  "  She  supplicated  the  Virgin  Mary, 
'iKiTitJovo-a^  beseeching  her  to  afford  aid  to  a  virgin  in 
peril;  and,  by  the  medicine  of  fasting  and  prostrations 
on  the  bare  earth,  she  farthered  h.er  purpose,  partly  that, 
by  these  means,  she  might  tarnish  those  charms  which 
were  the  cause  of  her  trouble,  and  so  remove  fuel  from 
the  flame;  and  partly,  that,  by  her  suflerings  and  humi- 
liations she  might  propitiate  God:  for  indeed  by  nothing 
is  God  so  well  pleased,  Qipj.7rtuiT^i,  as  by  the  sufferings 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATIO>?.  28 § 

of  the  body,  and  it  is  to  tears  that  he  is  wont  to  render 
his  compassion." 

This  is  "  antiquity;"  th.is  is  "  catholic  teaching;"  this 
is  that  "perfect  form  of  our  religion,"  which,  as  we  are 
now  told,  was  at  length  brought  out,  after  a  three  hun- 
dred years'  preparation,  or  concoction  of  its  rude  ele- 
ments: this  is  the  venerable  system  which  we  are  to  put 
in  the  place  of  the  Christianity  of  the  reformers?  Many 
who,  seduced  by  fair  words,  and  a  very  partial,  and 
therefore  fallacious  exhibition  of  what  ancient  Christi- 
anity really  was,  are  giving  in  their  submission  to  what 
is  called  Catholicism,  would  be  horror-stricken  did  they 
fully  know  what  this  Catholicism  actually  includes. 

If  it  should  be  said  that  passages  such  as  the  above 
are  but  spots  on  the  disk  of  the  sun,  and  need  be  taken 
no  account  of,  our  part  then  will  be,  in  the  place  of 
every  single  quotation,  to  produce  a  hundred;  and  all  of 
the  same  dark  colour.  Is  it  possible  that  the  gospel, 
such  as  the  apostles  gave  it  to  the  world,  should  consist 
with  the  practice  of  praying  to  the  Virgin  Mary?  No; 
if  there  be  any  consistency  in  religious  principles.  Nor, 
in  fact,  did  these  irreconcilable  elements  cohere:  the 
worse  presently  expelled  the  better,  and  brought  with  it 
every  kindred  superstition: — as  for  instance — 

— After  the  executioner  had  done  his  office,  says  our 
orator,  the  body  (of  Cyprian)  strange  to  say,  was  not  to 
be  found,  it <;)ii'£j  «v :  the  "  treasure  had,  however,  been 
taken  care  cf  by  a  pious  lady,  who  long  concealed  it, 
whether  it  were  merely  that  it  pleased  God  thus  to  ho- 
nour and  reward  her  piety;  or  whether  to  prove  us,  and 
to  try  if  the  deprivation  of  the  sacred  relics  would  really 
distress  us.  Hov/ever  this  might  be,  at  length  private 
advantage  was  made  to  yield  to  the  public  welfare,  and 
the  God  of  the  martyrs  brouo^ht  the  sacred  remains  to 


286  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

light!  What  honours  have  not  been  granted  to  women!" 
.  .  .  Then  follow  the  innumerable  miracles  of  heal- 
ing effected  by  this  holy  dust!  all  which  those  were 
ready  to  attest,  who  had  made  proof  of  their  efficacy. 

To  translate  at  length  the  nauseous  drivelling  of  Na- 
zianzen  in  this,  and  similar  instances,  is  a  task  I  must 
decline: — let  those  who  are  hovering  between  Christi- 
anity, and  "  catholic  antiquity,"  read  it  for  themselves; 
or  let  the  Oxford  divines  give  to  the  English  public, 
whole  and  entire,  the  festival  orations  of  the  two  Gre- 
gorys, and  of  Chrysostoni.  All  would  then  know,  fairly 
and  at  once,  the  extent  to  which  they  will  have  to  go  in 
accepting  the  latter,  and  in  relinquishing  the  former. 

Fitly,  in  this  instance,  as  in  others,  Nazianzen  in- 
cludes, in  his  peroration,  a  devout  prayer  to  the  glorified 
martyr.  *'  And  thou,  from  thy  seat,  look  down  upon 
us  propitiously  .  .  .  aiding  us  in  the  government  of  the 
flock."  That  this  was  not  a  rhetorical  flourish  appears, 
not  only  from  the  seriousness  and  frequency  of  similar 
invocations,  but  from  a  formal  profession  which  the 
speaker,  in  the  funeral  oration  for  his  father,  makes  of 
his  opinion  on  this  point  of  "  catholic  belief."  (See  the 
19lh  oration.)  "  I  am  persuaded,"  says  Nazianzen, 
"  that  our  father's  intercession  now  avails  us  more  than 
his  teaching  did  while  present  with  us  in  the  body;  now 
that  he  has  got  near  to  God,  has  shaken  off  the  fetters  of 
the  body,  and,  freed  from  the  mud  of  earth,  approaches 
naked  the  naked."  .  .  . 

It  might  be  well  to  follow  this  same  father  through 
his  panegyric  orations.  Let  the  diligent  inquirer  do  so; 
and  if  he  finds,  here  and  there,  expressions  fitting  a 
Christian  preacher,  consider  always  with  what  ingre- 
dients these  shining  fragments  arc  mingled. 

It  may,  however,  seem  probable  that,  although  Nazian- 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  287 

zen's  florid  eloquence  might  conceal  the  belter  and  purer 
elements  of  Cyprian's  Christian  character,  these  would 
not  fail  to  make  their  appearance  if  we  could  look  into 
some  memoir  of  the  martyr,  composed  by  a  contempo- 
rary, and  one,  therefore,  who  was  nearer,  by  a  century, 
to  the  apostolic  age.  Such  an  opportunity  is  then  actu- 
ally afforded  to  us  in  the  Life  of  St.  Cyprian,  as  written 
by  his  own  deacon,  his  constant  attendant  and  friend, 
Pontius.  Be  it  that  Nazianzen  plays  the  part  of  the 
mere  orator,  ambitious  to  sliine,  and  looking  at  his  ob- 
ject through  the  haze  of  time,  and  the  mists  of  supersti- 
tion: but  Pontius  was  the  disciple  and  intimate  com- 
panion of  the  martyr,  and  the  sharer  of  his  perils. 
What  materials  then  does  this  authentic  record  present, 
pertinent  to  our  argument? — we  find  in  it  the  same  abso- 
lute destitution  of  evangelic  sentiments,  and  the  same 
ascetic  feeling.  The  deacon  commences  his  portrait  of 
his  master  precisely  in  the  style  that  characterizes  the 
fathers,  from  Tertullian  downwards.  "  The  preserva- 
tion of  continence,  and  the  treading  under  foot  the  con- 
cupiscence of  the  flesh  by  a  robust  and  thorough  sanc- 
tity," was,  we  are  told,  the  prime  rudiment  of  Cyprian's 
Christianity,  and  the  most  direct  means,  in  his  esteem, 
of  rendering  his  bosom  the  fit  receptacle  of  truth! 
The  modern  reader  should  be  on  his  guard  against  the 
error  of  attaching,  either  a  protestant  or  a  classical  sense, 
to  the  terms  which  meet  us  in  this  instance,  and  on  every 
page  of  ecclesiastical  literature;  and  which,  as  there  em- 
ployed, carry  always  a  technical  sense;  as,  for  instance, 
in  this  place,  sanctimojiia,  is  not  holiness,  either  in  an 
apostolic,  or  a  modern  sense  of  the  term;  but  the  sancti- 
moniousness, or  factitious  purity  of  the  ascetic  life:  the 
concupiscentia  carnis,  is  the  abstract  affection,  proper 
to  our  nature,  not  its  irregular  or  depraved  excesses:  the 


288  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

coniinentia,  is  not  purity  of  heart  and  manners,  but  ce- 
libacy: and  the  pectus  idoneum,  is  such  a  preparation  of 
the  animal  nature,  as,  according  to  the  gnostic  notion, 
was  the  prerequisite  of  all  correspondence  with  the  Su- 
preme Being.     The  rest  of  this  Life  of  Cyprian  is  oc- 
cupied with  the  martyr's  virtues,  his  charity,  diligence, 
courage,  contempt  of  the  world,  and  so  forlh; — virtues, 
springing  from  motives  far  more  powerful  than  any  that 
were  known  to  heathen  philosophy,  and  reaching  a  prac- 
tical extent  in  proportion,  and  such  as  heathenism  had 
never  dreamed  of.     What  stoics  have  ever  acted  as  Cy- 
prian did,  during  the  pestilence  at  Carthage?  what  stoics 
have  ever  died  as  he  did?     Nevertheless,  Cyprian's  vir- 
tue would  be  much  better  described  as  a  stoicism  puri- 
fied and  animated,  than  as  Christianity  imbodied.    None 
could  fail  to  feel  powerfully  the  vast  difTerence  between 
apostolic  (and  protestant)  Christian  sentiment  on  the  one 
hand,  and  gnosticised  ancient  Christianity  on  the  other, 
who  would  do  themselves  the  justice  to  read  Pontius's 
Life  of  Cyprian,  by  the  side  of  any  memoir  of  the  mar- 
tyr bishops  of  the  English  reformation.     Was  not  Cy- 
prian, then,  a  good  man,  and  a  Christian  too?    Who  can 
doubt  it?   but  yet  not  nearly  so  well  taught  a  Christian, 
as  have  been  scores  of  Romanist  bishops  and  monks,  of 
the  middle  ages.     If,  therefore,  we  choose  to  reject  the 
reformers  as  our  masters  in  theology,  it  w^ere  far  better 
to  stop  short  near  at  hand  in  the  church  of  Rome,  where 
we  may  find  spirituality,  as  well  as  fervour,  and  a  more 
full  expansion  of  doctrines,  than  to  go  up  to  the  Nicene, 
or  the  Cyprianic  age,  where  all  is  dim  and  unformed. 
This,  I  am  persuaded,  will  be  felt  and  frankly  acknow- 
ledged by  all  open  to  conviction,  who,  laying  aside  their 
terror  ol  popery,  will  deliberately  and  calmly  compare 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  289 

the  best  Romish  writers  with  the  best  Nicene  or  ante- 
Nicene  fathers.  It  may  be  very  true  that  a  return  to  Ro- 
manism, on  the  part  of  the  English  church,  would  in- 
volve some  very  awkward  practical  consequences,  which 
are  not  involved  in  a  return  to  ancient  Christianity,  and 
which  we  might  bring  about,  as  it  were,  silently  and  un- 
observed. But  if,  political  and  ecclesiastical  considera- 
tions apart,  we  were  to  entertain  the  question  of  such  a 
proposed  change,  on  purely  religious  grounds,  I  verily 
believe  that  we  should  see  reason  enough  for  accepting 
the  former  alternative,  rather  than  the  latter. 

I  do  not  suppose  that  any  champion  of  the  fathers, 
calling  himself  a  protestant — any  one  who  yet  holds  by 
the  articles  and  homilies  of  the  English  church,  will 
bring  forward  a  writer  like  Gregory  Nyssen,  with  the 
view  of  counteracting  the  impression  made  by  the  pas- 
saores  cited,  or  referred  to  above.  All  know  that,  be- 
tween  Nyssen's  Christianity  and  popery,  the  distinction, 
if  any,  is  of  the  nicest  kind — hard  to  catch,  and  harder 
to  keep  one's  hold  of.  I  leave  him  therefore,  much  as 
my  argument  might  be  served  by  adducing  the  evidence 
he  furnishes  of  the  errors  of  his  times. 

The  temper,  as  well  as  the  style  and  method  of  the 
Latin  theologians,  differs  much  from  that  which  distin- 
guishes the  eastern  and  Alexandrian  churches'  writers. 
And  yet,  notwithstanding  the  contrast  presented  by  the 
richness,  the  exuberance,  the  refinement  and  subdety, 
and  the  theoretic  tendency  of  the  latter,  and  the  severi- 
ty and  practical  directness  of  the  former,  the  sovereign 
influence  of  the  system  to  which  the  one  as  well  as  the 
other  had  bowed,  is  every  where  apparent.  In  the  place 
of  the  gospel,  as  preached  by  the  apostles,  and  '*  wor- 
thy of  all  acceptation,"  and  equally  necessary  for  all,  the 
25* 


290  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

church  had  adopted  a  transcendental  mysticism,  the  ho- 
nours and  benefits  of  which  were  offered  to  a  very  few; 
while  to  the  many,  instead  either  of  the  free  gospel,  or 
of  the  prerogatives  of  the  upper  species  of  virtue,  the 
church  offered  its  sacraments,  as  tangible  conveyances 
of  so  much  grace  as  might  secure  salvation  to  those 
wliose  faith  and  virtue  were  of  a  vulgar  stamp. 

In  whatever  respects  Ambrose  of  Milan  may  difier 
from  the  Gregorys,  or  from  Chrysoslom,  he  is  tliorough- 
ly  in  accordance  with  them,  so  far  as  the  above  general 
description  goes: — they  indeed  may  incline  toward  the 
mild,  abstracted,  and  imaginative  sooffeeism, — or  Plato- 
nism;  while  he,  and  the  Latins,  less  given  to  meditation, 
and  more  conversant  with  the  business  of  life,  leaned 
toward  the  stern  and  stoical  system:  they,  speaking  of 
Christianity  as  a  scheme  o(  philosophy  (ihe  term  con- 
stantly employed  by  the  Greek  fathers)  these  calling  it  a 
system  of  discipline.  The  general  product,  however,  of 
the  two  institutes  was  the  same,  and  both  alike  dimmed, 
or  removed  from  its  place,  t!ie  glory  of  the  gospel. 

To  the  instances  which  I  have  adduced  above,  it  may 
perhaps  be  objected  that  the  occasions  on  which  the  for- 
mal orations  I  have  quoted  were  uttered,  were  not  the 
most  favourable  for  bringing  forth  the  intimate  and  per- 
sonal sentiments  of  the  speakers,  as  Christians;  and  that, 
just  on  these  annual  festivals,  the  temptation  to  make  a 
show  of  sparkling  rhetoric  overcame  the  better  feelings 
of  the  preacher. — Be  it  so.  Let  us  llien  take  up  an  in- 
stance in  which,  if  in  any  that  is  conceivable,  a  preach- 
er may  be  supposed  to  have  had  his  best  and  most  cha- 
racteristic Christian  sentiments  so  powerfully  wrought 
upon,  as  to  carry  him  far  above  the  range  of  the  inferior 
motives  of  intellectual  ambition.  When  is  it  ihat  our 
modern  pulpil  orators  are  seen,  if  not  to  the  greatest  ad- 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION".  291 

Vantage  as  orators,  yet  to  the  greatest  as  men,  personal- 
ly imbued  with  the  quickening  motives,  and  animated 
by  the  hopes  of  the  gospel?  Surely  it  is,  when  the 
fountains  of  grief  having  been  broken  up,  by  some  sud- 
den bereavement,  whatever,  in  their  ordinary  style,  mav 
have  been  formal,  or  arliticia],  or  perfunctory,  is  tho- 
roughly dispelled  by  the  agony  of  the  heart;  and  wlien 
the  energies  of  faith  impart  life  and  power  to  every  word 
that  is  uttered.  We  may  then,  on  the  ground  of  this  ge- 
neral rule,  very  properly  make  our  way  into  the  crowd- 
ed episcopal  church  at  Milan,  at  the  solemn  hour  when 
the  holy  father — Ambrose,  smitten  with  the  keenest 
shaft  of  sorrow,  and  yet  compressing  and  commanding 
his  tumultuous  grief,  harangues  the  multitude,  a  few 
days  only  after  tlie  death  of  his  beloved  brother,  Saty- 
rus.  Now,  surely,  if  at  any  time,  we  shall  hear  the 
Christian  freely  uttering  Christian  sentiments;  and  now, 
if  ever,  in  the  eulogistic  enumeration  of  the  departed 
saint's  virtues,  we  shall  see  what  ancient  Christianity 
was  in  the  concrete,  and  v.'hen  the  most  fully  deveh^ped. 
Of  the  two  orations  pronounced  on  this  mournful  oc- 
casion, the  second,  on  the  faith  of  the  Resurrection,  we 
may  pass  by,  noticing  only  the  proof  it  furnishes  of  that 
coldness  of  the  affections,  and  mere  intellectuality,  which 
has  ever  been  the  fruit  of  the  ascetic  system:  nothing 
can  be  more  chilling  than  this  discourse,  considered  in 
reference  to  the  circumstances  which  attended  its  de- 
livery. The  first  oration  pronounced  in  the  great  church 
whither  the  corpse  of  Satyrus  had  been  carried,  presents 
those  perpetual  antitheses,  and  smart  turns  intended  to 
catch  the  ear  of  the  vulgar,  whicii  belong  rather  to  the 
bad  taste  of  the  times,  than  to  the  mind  of  the  indi- 
vidual speaker;  they  indicate,  however,   the  same  in- 


"293  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

tellectual  frigidity,  and  that  thoroughly  sophisticated  sen- 
timent, which  the  religious  system  had  brought  in  with 
it. 

Ambrose  professes  the  tenderest  affection  to  have  sub- 
sisted between  himself  and  his  deceased  brother,  who 
had  been  his  solace,  stay,  and   adviser,  amid  the  cares 
and  labours  of  his  public  life.     Natural  affection  had,  in 
this  instance,  only  cemented  the  more  intimately  an  at- 
tachment which  the  amiable  and  exalted  qualities  of  Sa- 
tyrus   must  alone  have   rendered   fervent  and  devoted. 
This   beloved   brother,   after  having  narrowly  escaped 
from  shipwreck,  was  attacked  soon  after  his  return  to 
Italy,  with  an  acute  disorder,  which  snatched  him  from 
the  fondness  of  his  family  and  friends,  and  from  the  pub- 
lic service.     Alas!   it  appeared  from  the  event,  that  he 
had  asked  only  of  "  St.  Laurence  the  martyr," — what 
had  indeed  been  granted  to  his  prayers — a  safe  passage! 
Would  that  he  had  prayed  also  for  length  of  years!    Let 
not  the  protestant  reader,  who  may  lately  have  heard 
Ambrose  named  as  one  of  the  great  three,  to  whom  we 
are  to  look  for  our  idea  of  finished  Christianity,  let  him 
not  be  startled  at  this  praying  to  a  saint.     Ambrose  in 
the  west,  as  well  as  Nazianzen,  Nyssen,  Chrysostom, 
in   the  east,  and   others,  too  many  to  name,  had  con- 
vinced himself  that  no  prayers  were  so  well  expedited 
on  high,  as  those  which  were  presented  by  a  saint  and 
martyr  already  in  the  skies!     In  fact,  a  good  choice  as 
10  the   "  patrocinium,"  was  the  main  point  in  the  busi- 
ness of  prayer.     These  matters   were,  however,  regu- 
lated by  a  certain  propriety  and  conventional  usage, — 
may  we  say,  etiquette:  it  was  not  on  every  sort  of  occa- 
sion that  the  Virgin  was  to  be  troubled  with  the  wants 
and  wislies  of  mortals:  each  saint  Ijad,  indeed,  come  to 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  29^ 

have  his  department;  and  each  was  applied  to  in  his  par- 
ticular line.  In  connexion  with  subjects  such  as  this 
how  can  one  be  serious?  unless  indeed  considerations 
are  admitted  that  agitate  the  mind  with  emotions  of  in- 
dignation and  disgust. 

It  was,  however,  a  consolation  to  Ambrose,  in  the  loss 
of  his  brother,  that  he  had  lived  to  return  to  Milan, 
where  the  sacred  dust  would  be  at  all  times  accessible, 
affording  to  him  means  of  devotion  of  no  ordinary  value 
— "  habeo  sepulcrum,"  says  he,  "  super  quod  jaceam,  et 
commendabiliorem  Deo  futurum  esse  me  credam,  quod 
supra  sancti  corporis  ossa  requiescam."  Ambrose  was 
truly  a  gainer  by  the  death  of  his  brother;  for  in  place  of 
his  mere  bodily  presence,  as  a  living  coadjutor,  he  had 
the  justifying  merits  of  his  bones,  and  the  benefit  of  his 
intercession  in  heaven!  Ungracious  task  indeed  is  it  to 
adduce  these  instances  of  blasphemous  superstition,  as 
attaching  to  a  name  like  that  of  Ambrose;  but  what 
choice  is  left  us  when,  as  now,  the  Christian  commu- 
nity, little  suspecting  what  is  implied  in  the  advice, 
are  enjoined  to  take  their  faith  and  practice  from  the  di- 
vines of  the  Nicene  age,  and  from  Ambrose,  Athanasius, 
and  Basil,  especially? 

The  weeping  orator  having  spent  a  little  his  verbose 
grief,  returns  upon  his  path,  in  order  to  set  before  the 
people — the  plebs  sancta,  this  exemplar  of  virtue,  or 
compendium  of  Christian  graces.  It  is  certain  therefore 
that  tliis  highly  finished  portrait  of  one  so  well  known 
to  him,  and  so  fondly  admired,  will  contain  whatever 
was,  in  the  preacher's  opinion,  most  important  to  the 
Christian  character: — the  instance  is  then  every  thing 
we  could  wish  for,  considered  as  a  criterion  of  ancient 
Christianity,  in   the   concrete.     Without  a  play  upoa 


294     CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

words,  it  may  properly  be  called  an  experimentum  crucis. 
We  proceed  then  to  analyze  this  most  conclusive  record. 
What  were  the  virtues  and  graces  of  Satyrus — a  perfect 
Christian  after  the  Nicene  model? 

First  comes  his  reverential  regard  to  the  rites  of  re- 
ligion; of  which  a  striking  instance  is  afforded.  The 
vessel  in  which  Satyrus  was  returning  to  Italy  having 
got  on  the  rocks,  he,  not  as  yet  initiated  in  the  higher 
mysteries,  and  not  regenerated,  yet  not  fearing  death, 
but  fearing  lest  he  should  die  without  them,  had  recourse 
to  those  on  board  who  had  in  their  custody  the  conse- 
crated elements  (ordinarily  carried,  in  a  journey,  as  a  safe- 
guard againstall  perils)  and  having  obtained  them,  wrapped 
them  in  a  stole,  or  sacrificial  kerchief,  which  he  tied  about 
his  neck;  and,  thus  armed,  in  any  event,  fearlessly  threw 
himself  into  the  sea:  itaque  his  se  tectum  atque  munitum 
satis  credens,  alia  auxilia  non  desideravit.  A  good  be- 
ginning, is  it  not?  The  modern  admirers  of  antiquity 
seem  to  be  offended  when  they  are  accused  of  "  putting 
the  sacraments  in  the  place  of  the  Saviour;"  but  now 
they  are  turning  us  over  to  masters  of  divinity  who  re- 
commend what,  if  it  do  not  imply  some  such  substitu- 
tion, is  altogether  unintelligible.  Thrust  this  same  in- 
cident into  the  memoirs  of  any  one  of  the  insulted  fa- 
thers of  the  English  reformation:  will  it  suit  the  connex- 
ion, and  consist  with  the  spirit  and  doctrine  of  the  con- 
text? It  would  not,  and  those  are  miserably  betraying 
the  English  church,  who,  under  cover  of  a  mystification 
of  plain  and  untoward  facts,  are  striving  to  put  the  de- 
based Christianity  of  Ambrose,  Jerome,  and  Basil,  in  the 
place  of  the  gospel  recovered  by  its  founders. 

But  we  proceed  with  the  virtues  of  Satyrus,  the  list 
of  which  includes  fortitude,  and  pious  gratitude,  evinced 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  295 

in  his  thanksgiving  on  account  of  the  deliverance  above 
referred  to; — gratitude,  the  expression  of  which  gave 
evidence  of,  and  augmented  his  faith,  and  a  faith  such  as 
had  enabled  him  to  confide  almost  as  calmly  in  the  effi- 
cacy of  the  consecrated  elements  tied  about  his  neck,  as 
he  could  have  done  had  they  actually  passed  into  his  sto- 
mach! Next  comes  an  instance  of  his  cautious  regard  to 
legitimate  church  authority.  Then,  the  childlike  sim- 
plicity of  his  disposition  and  manner,  and  his  singular 
modesty — pudor  and  purity,  in  speech  as  well  as  deport- 
ment and  person.  And  such  an  admirer  of  chastity  was 
he,  and  yet  so  abhorrent  of  ostentation,  that,  "  Avhen 
urged  by  his  family  to  marry,  having  resolved  to  main- 
tain his  purity,  he  rather  dissembled  his  purpose,  than 
professed  his  determination.  AVho  then  shall  not  ad- 
mire a  man  who,  not  wanting  in  magnanimity  (sense  of 
distinction)  and  standing  as  he  did  between  a  sister  pro- 
fessing virginity,  and  a  brother  of  high  rank  in  the 
church,  yet  affected  not  the  honours  of  either  condition, 
while  himself  replete  with  the  virtues  of  both?" 

The  frugality  and  temperance  of  Satyrus  kept  pace 
with  his  chastity;  all  which  were  cemented  by  the  cardi- 
nal virtue  justice,  and  a  regard  to  the  claims  of  all,  whe- 
ther those  claims  were  of  the  definite  or  indefinite  class, 
and  not  least,  those  of  the  poor.  Such  is  this  portrait; 
and  the  preacher,  having  satisfied  his  own  conception  of 
the  congeries  of  Christian  virtues,  indulges  again  in  the 
sorrow  which  yet  he  reproves,  and  concludes  by  com- 
mending the  "  innocent  soul,"  as  an  oflTering  to  God. 
Innocent,  that  is  to  say,  one  of  those  whom  Ambrose, 
in  another  place,  (De  Pcenitentia,  lib.  ii.  sect.  10, j  says  it 
was  easier  to  find,  than  any  who  had  duly  practised  pe- 
nitence. 


296  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

But  not  one  line  does  tliis  funereal  panegyric  contain 
breathing  an  evangelic  feeling,  or  adverting  to  the  great 
principles  of  the  gospel!  It  would  be  wrong  to  speak 
of  this  elaborate  composition  as  defective,  or  ambiguous, 
or  erroneous,  in  relation  to  the  leading  truths  of  Chris- 
tianity; for  it  touches  them  not  even  in  the  remotest  man- 
ner. As  well  say  that  tbe  Pha3do  of  Plato  is  wanting 
in  evangelic  perspicuity,  or  that  Cicero,  De  natura  deo- 
rum,  does  not  fully  express  tbe  doctrine  of  the  thirty- 
nine  articles.  Cicero,  Seneca,  Epictetus,  any  one  we 
may  choose  to  name,  is  as  evangelic  as  Ambrose,  so  far 
as  the  composition  before  us  goes.  Nor  is  the  contrast 
more  violent  between  the  writings  of  heathen  moralists, 
and  the  epistles  of  Paul,  than  that  wb.ich  offers  itself 
when,  by  the  side  of  the  inspired  writings,  we  place  this 
Nicene  oration. 

The  inference  I  draw  from  so  signal  an  instance  would 
be  in  no  degree  invalidated  by  adducing,  from  the  same 
writer,  passages  of  an  evangelic  aspect.  Such  passages 
would  either  come  ui^der  the  designation  of  dry  dogma- 
tic statements;  or  they  would  express  those  occasional 
outbursts  of  a  better  feeling  which  enable  us  yet  to  be- 
lieve that  these  writers  were  personally  better  than  their 
system.  But  then,  the  Romanist  writers,  even  those  of 
the  darkest  times,  may  readily  be  supplied  with  a  simi- 
lar apology.  And  how  much  more  full  and  satisfactory 
is  such  an  apology  in  the  instance  of  more  modern  Ro- 
manists, as  for  example,  those  of  the  Port  Royal  school! 
Whatever  may  be  the  demerits  of  Romanism,  as  com- 
pared with  Nicene  Christianity,  it  is  not  to  be  denied, 
that,  in  fervour  and  evangelic  feeling,  toe,  its  best  wri- 
ters are  decisively  superior  to  those  of  the  earlier  time. 
In  fact,  it  would  be  extremely  difficult  to  collect,  any 
where,   from    those  distinctively  called — the  fathers,  a 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  297 

mass  of  Christian  sentiment,  such  as  might  be  brought 
together,  with  the  greatest  ease,  from  the  devotional  and 
practical  works  of  the  middle  and  later  ages.  It  would 
be  perfectly  safe  to  accept  a  challenge  to  adduce  three 
passages  from  Romanist  authors,  for  every  one  from 
the  Nicene  fathers,  such  as  would  satisfy  a  modern  pro- 
testant  ear. 

Or  the  comparison  might  be  instituted  on  a  rather  dif- 
ferent ground,  as  for  example,  on  that  of  the  presence 
or  absence  of  expressions,  utterly  offensive  to  every  sound 
Christian  feeling;  and  which  it  is  very  hard  to  reconcile 
with  the  supposition  of  genuine  piety,  in  the  writer. 
Now,  it  must  be  confessed,  that  many  things  meet  the  eye 
on  the  pages  of  the  great  writers  of  the  Nicene  age,  of 
a  kind  that  finds  no  parallels  in  the  accredited  and  most 
esteemed  Romanist  writers.  Altogether,  those  proprie- 
ties, both  moral  and  religious,  which  modern  refinement 
demands — and  properly  demands,  are  far  better  observed 
by  the  later,  than  they  were  by  the  earlier  authors;  and 
especially  will  this  appear  to  be  true,  if  we  confine  our- 
selves to  those  of  the  highest  reputation,  respectively. 
None,  I  think,  will  attempt  to  deny  this  advantage,  as 
belonging  to  the  Romish  church,  in  regard  to  the  obser- 
vance of  the  moral  decencies  of  style,  or  subject;  nor 
do  I  see  that  it  can  be  refused  in  relation  to  theological 
proprieties:  as  for  instance — 

Ephrem  the  Syrian,  a  highly  esteemed  writer  of  the 
Nicene  school,  and  one  who,  ascetic  as  he  is,  may  be 
read  with  pleasure  and  advantage  by  those  who  are  bet- 
ter taught  than  himself,  and  who  know  how  to  supply 
his  deplorable  deficiencies  in  evangelic  principle,  gives 
us  a  story  to  the  following  efiect.  Abraham  the  hermit, 
his  own  intimate  friend,  had  had  consigned  to  his  ca^e, 
26 


298  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

in  the  wilderness  (alas  the  luckless  girl,)  an  orphan 
niece,  the  heiress  of  an  ample  fortune,  then  in  her  se- 
venth year,  whom  her  relatives  (such  were  the  notions 
of  the  times,)  conveniently  disposed  of,  by  incarcerating 
her  in  a  cell,  destitute  of  every  comfort, 'adjoining  tha't 
of  the  hermit.  In  this  den  the  poor  girl's  liours  were^'occu- 
pied  in  the  performance  of  menial  offices  for  her  uncle, 
and  in  the  routine  of  penance  and  devotion.  It  was 
her  misfortune,  moreover,  to  be  very  handsome,  so  the 
legend  runs.  Seen  and  seduced  by  a  monk,  who,  on 
pretence  of  spiritual  perplexity,  frequented  the  holy  se- 
clusion, she  abandoned,  at  once,  her  profession,  her  pri- 
son, and  her  keeper;  who,  after  awhile,  discovers  her 
shame,  and  the  place  of  her  sojourn;  whither  he  follows 
her  in  disguise,  acting  a  part  the  most  foreign  to  his  ha- 
bits. At  last,  discovering  himself  to  the  f^ir  runaway, 
he  brings  her  to  tears  and  shame,  and  among  the  induce- 
ments, by  means  of  which  he  labours  to  restore  her  to 
virtue,  and  to  the  ascetic  life,  he  says,  with  the  view  of 
obviating  her  despair  of  forgiveness,  '♦  Mary— 1  will  be 
answerable  for  thee  before  God  in  the  day  of  judgment. 
I  will  repent  for  thee  on  account  of  this  course  of  ""sin.— 
Upon  me  be  thy  sin,  my  child;  of  my  hands  shall  God 
require  this  thy  sin;  only  listen  to  me,  and  return  with 
me  to  thy  place."  Ephrem.  p.  231.  Oxford  edition. 

It  is  only  the  inferior  class  of  Romanist  writers  who, 
in  any  such  way,  are  found  to  outrage  all  propriety. 
How  miserably  must  those  have  lost  the  consciousness 
of  their  own  position,  as  sinners,  needing  mercy,  who 
could  have  fallen  into  the  habit  of  making  themselves 
responsible  for  the  sins  of  others! 

Until  of  late,  in  perusing  the  fathers,  we  have  been 
accustomed  to  take  very  little,  or  no  account,  of  flagrant 
impieties  such  as  this:  and  passing  them,  perhaps,  with 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  299 

a  smile,  have  simply  said — "  Such  was  the  style  of  the 
times."  But  we  must  no  longer  allow  ourselves  this 
sort  of  easy  philosophic  indifference.  The  Nicene  fa- 
thers, with  their  superstitions  and  their  sooffeeism,  are 
now  to  be  forced  upon  the  English  church,  in  the  room 
of  her  wise,  holy,  manly,  and  Christian-like  founders. 
The  substitution  is  horrid:  it  must  be  resisted;  and  to  re- 
sist it,  and  to  dissipate  the  illusions  which  favour  the 
traitorous  attempt,  the  real  quality  of  these  writers,  and 
of  their  theological  system,  must  be  laid  bare,  without 
scruple  or  mercy. 

Now  it  will  not  do,  slightly,  to  say  in  reply — "  Oh, 
the  fathers  had  their  blemishes,  no  doubt,  and  so  have 
the  best  writers,  of  the  best  ages;  and  we  leave  these 
minor  imperfections  where  we  find  them;  and  we  think 
the  bringing  them  forward  is  an  instance  of  ill-directed 
industry."  This  mode  of  disposing  of  the  difficulty 
will  not  meet  the  occasion. — A  blemish  may  be  either  a 
spot  or  stain,  tarnishing  the  surface  of  a  solid  and  pre- 
cious substance;  or  it  may  be  a  corroded  speck,  or  a 
worn  point,  or  edge,  in  the  mere  gilding  that  hides  a 
worthless  material:  a  blemish,  of  the  former  sort,  may 
be  removed,  with  equal  ease  and  advantage  to  the  body 
to  which  it  has  attached;  but  to  rub  and  scour  an  atte- 
nuated gilding,  what  is  it  but  to  reveal,  at  every  stroke, 
the  vile  brass,  or  wood,  or  clay,  to  which  we  had  fond- 
ly attributed  a  hundred  times  its  intrinsic  value? 

The  lives,  labours,  and  writings  of  our  English  refor- 
mers, are  disfigured  by  many  blemishes;  grant  it.  But 
it  is  also  true,  that,  in  making  ourselves  acquainted  with 
them,  our  own  minds  being  imbued  with  biblical  senti- 
ments, we  become  more  and  more  impressed  with  the 
conviction  of  their  solid  excellence: — they  were  men  of 
God,  and,  taught  as  they  were  from  above,  whatever 


3*00  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

may  have  been  their  faults,  they  understood  and  pro- 
fessed what  is  the  most  momentous  in  the  Christian  sys- 
tem. The  result  of  an  equally  thorough  examination 
of  the  Nicene  fathers,  and  under  the  guidance  of  ge- 
nuine principles,  will  be,  if  not  of  an  opposite,  yet  of 
a  very  different  kind;  and  we  shall  be  compelled  to  con- 
fess, that  those  vital  elements  of  truth  which  the  one  set 
of  men  had  recovered,  under  the  divine  guidance,  from 
the  scriptures,  the  other  set  did  but  dimly  discern,  and 
faintly  hold,  and  were  continually  surrendering,  for  a 
mere  pliantom  of  piety. 

The  limits  of  this  tract,  and  the  range  of  subjects  it 
must  embrace,  render  it  impracticable  for  me  to  acquit 
myself  otherwise  than  very  imperfectly,  of  the  task  I 
have  undertaken;  but  I  shall  be  content  if  I  shall  have 
induced  any  to  pursue,  for  themselves,  the  line  of  inquiry 
which  I  have  indicated.  If  a  hundred  instances  were 
added  to  the  few  already  given,  the  complexion  of  all 
would  be  the  same.  That  is  to  say,  whenever  we  look 
at  ancient  Christianity,  in  the  concrete,  or  as  imbodied 
in  the  lives,  sentiments,  and  practices  of  those  who  en- 
joyed the  highest  reputation  for  sanctity,  we  find,  ever 
and  again,  the  same  ingredients,  and  these  placed  nearly 
in  the  same  order;  and  with  the  same  utter  want  of  evan- 
gelic feeling. — There  is  foremost,  the  high-wrought  as- 
cetic virtue,  and  its  indispensable  condition — virginity; 
or,  what  we  may  fairly  call,  an  illuminated  stoicism: 
then  follow  the  virtues  which  best  harmonize  with  the 
ascetic  life,  and  the  motives  of  which  are  drawn,  with 
much  effect,  from  the  Christian  doctrine  of  another  life. 
The  accessories — sometimes  the  leading  excellences  of 
this  order  of  piety,  were,  a  prostrate  submission  to 
church  authority,  and  such  a  regard  to  the  sacraments, 
especially  to  the  holy  eucharist,  as  is  not  surpassed,  a 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  301 

whit,  by  the  boldest  professors  of  transubstantiation. 
This  description  applies,  with  hardly  a  shade  of  differ- 
ence, to  all  instances  intervening  between  the  times  of 
TertuUian,  and  the  age  of  Gregory  I. 

To  afford  a  digested  summary  of  the  style  of  expound- 
ing scripture  by  the  Nicene  writers,  and  such  as  should 
fairly  represent  it,  seems  altogether  impracticable;  and, 
especially,  because  nothing  short  of  lengthened  quota- 
tions would  enable  the  reader  to  judge  the  whole  ques- 
tion. A  sample  or  two  may  be  offered,  merely  in  illus- 
tration of  what  is  meant  by  the  broad  assertion — That 
the  notions  universally  entertained  of  religious  celibacy, 
and  of  its  high  merits  and  importance,  had  the  effect  of 
dislodging  the  most  momentous  truths  of  the  Christian 
system:  as  thus — 

I  suppose  that,  in  expounding  the  parable  of  the  ten 
virgins,  most  modern  and  protesiant  writers  have  consi- 
dered the  solemn  meaning  it  conveys  as  intended  for  the 
benefit  of  Christians  at  large,  and  by  no  means  as  re- 
stricted to  the  members  of  a  spiritual  aristocracy.  More- 
over, it  has,  I  think,  been  generally  understood,  that  our 
Lord,  by  "  the  oil  in  the  lamp,"  meant  that  principle  of 
genuine  piety  which  distinguishes  his  true  followers  from 
mere  pretenders,  or  professors;  so  that  the  general  pur- 
port of  the  parable  is  to  incite  us  to  make  serious  in- 
quiry into  the  state  of  our  hearts,  as  "alive  to  God,"  or 
not.  But  it  is  in  no  such  m.anner  that  the  illustrious 
Chrysostom  understands,  or  interprets,  the  allegory: 
let  us  hear  him,  (^s^/  /uirAvotnc,  Hom.  III.  tom.  ii.  p.  348.) 

"  What!  hast  thou  not  understood  from  the  instance 
of  the  ten  virgins,  in  the  gospel,  how  that  those  who, 
although  they  were  proficients  in  virginity,  yet  not  pos- 
sessing the  (virtue  of)  almsgiving,  were  excluded  from 
t>6* 


302  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

the  nuptial  banquet? Truly,  I  am  ashamed,  and 

blush  and  weep  when  I  hear  of  the  foolish  virgin.  When 
I  hear  the  very  name,  I  blush  to  think  of  one  who,  after 
she  had  reached  such  a  point  of  virtue,  after  she  had 
gone  through  the  training  of  virginity,  after  she  had  thus 
winged  the  body  aloft  toward  heaven,  (sheer  gnosticism 
this,)  after  she  had  contended  for  the  prize  with  the 
powers  on  high,  (the  angels,)  after  she  had  undergone 
the  toil,  and  liad  trodden  under  foot  the  tires  of  pleasure, 
to  hear  such  a  one  named,  and  justly  named,  a  fool,  be- 
cause that,  after  having  achieved  the  greater  labours,  (of 
virtue,)  she  should  be  wanting  in  the  lessl  ....  Now, 
the  fire  (of  the  lamps)  is — Virginity,  and  the  oil  is — 
Almsgiving.  And,  in  like  manner  as  the  flame,  unless 
supplied  with  a  stream  of  oil,  disappears,  so  virginity, 

unless  it  have  almsgiving,  is  extinguished But 

now,  who  are  the  venders  of  this  oil? — The  poor  who, 
for  receiving  alms,  sit  about  the  doors  of  the  church. 
And  for  how  much  is  it  to  be  bought? — for  what  you 
will.  I  set  no  price  upon  it,  lest,  in  doing  so,  I  should 
exclude  the  indigent.  For,  so  much  as  you  have,  make 
this  purchase.  Hast  thou  a  penny? — purchase  heaven, 
ttyoftta-ov  Tcv  cvg-xvov,  not,  indeed,  as  if  heaven  were  cheap; 
but  the  Master  is  indulgent.  Hast  thou  not  even  a  pen- 
ny? give  a  cup  of  cold  water,  for  he  hath  said,  &c.  .  .  . 
Heaven  is  on  sale,  and  in  the  market,  and  yet  we  mind 
it  not!  Give  a  crust,  and  take  back  paradise;  give  the 
least,  and  receive  the  greatest;  give  the  perishable,  re- 
ceive the  imperishable;  give  the  corruptible,  receive  the 
incorruptible.  If  there  were  a  fair,  and  a  plenty  of  pro- 
visions to  be  had,  at  the  vilest  rate, — all  to  be  bought  for 
a  song, — would  ye  not  realize  your  means,  and  postpone 
other  business,  and  secure  to  yourselves  a  share  in  such 


SCHEAIE  OF  SALVATION.  303 

dealing?  Where,  then,  things  corruptible  are  in  view, 
do  ye  show  such  diligence,  and  where  the  incorruptible, 
such  sluggishness,  and  such  proneness  to  fall  behind? 
Give  to  the  needy,  so  that,  even  if  thou  sayest  nothing 
for  thyself,  a  thousand  tongues  may  speak  in  thy  behalf; 
thy  charities  standing  up,  and  pleading  for  thee.  Alms 
are  the  redemption  of  the  soul,  xvrpov  -{vx^z  iT^iv  iki^^ij^oa-wi,. 
And,  in  like  manner,  as  there  are  set  vases  of  water  at 
the  church  gates,  for  washing  the  hands;  so  are  beggars 
sitting  there,  that  tliou  mayest  (by  their  means)  wash 
the  hands  of  thy  soul.  Hast  thou  washed  thy  palpable 
hands  in  water?  wash  the  hands  of  thy  soul  in  alms- 
giving!" 

The  preacher  then  makes  an  allusion,  such  as  no  pro- 
testant  would  disallow,  to  the  context,  "inasmuch  as  ye 
did  it,"  &c.:  and  then  proceeds,  "My  brethren,  alms- 
giving is  a  great  matter.  Let  us  embrace  it,  to  which 
nothing  is  equal  «f  cvSzv  /o-sv,  for  it  is  sufficient  for  the 
wiping  out  of  whatever  sins"  (Chrysostom's  expression 
KAt  ctK\ct(y  u/ua'^Tioic,  must  carry  this  sense,  or  something 
like  it)  "and  for  warding  off  condemnation.  Even  if 
thou  standest  speechless,  it  shall  plead  for  thee;  rather  I 
should  say,  there  is  no  need  of  words,  to  him  who  l)as 
gained  the  mouths  of  the  poor.  Give  what  thou  hast, 
for  the  reward  is  according  to  intention,  not  of  constraint 
.  .  .  But  I  return  to  the  virgins."  .  .  . 

What  follows,  although  the  citation  be  long,  is  too 
pertinent  to  our  present  purpose  to  be  omitted. 

"  But  what  is  it  which,  after  so  many  labours,  these 
(foolish)  virgins  hear? — I  know  you  not!  which  is  no- 
thing less  than  to  say  that  virginity,  vast  treasure  as  it 
is,  may  be  useless!  Think  of  them  (the  foolish  virgins) 
as  shut  out,  after  undergoing  such  labours,  after  reining 


304  CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

in  incontinence,  after  running  a  course  of  rivalry  with 
the  celestial  orders,  after  spurning  the  interests  of  the 
present  life,  after  sustaining  the  scorching  heat,  tov 
>LAvama.  Tcr  ^e>«v,  after  having  leapt  the  bound  (in  the 
gymnasium)  after  having  winged  their  way  from  earth 
to  heaven,  after  they  had  not  broken  the  seal  of  the  body 
(a  phrase  of  much  significance)  and  obtained  possession 
of  the  form  of  virginity  (the  eternal  idea  of  divine  purity) 
after  having  wrestled  with  angels,  after  trampling  upon 
the  imperative  impulses  of  the  body,  after  forgetting  na- 
ture, after  reaching,  in  the  body,  the  perfections  of  the 
disimbodied  state,  after  having  won,  and  held,  the  vast 
and  unconquerable  possession  of  virginity,  after  all  this, 
then  they  hear — Depart  from  me,  I  know  you  not! 

*'  Now  you  will  not  imagine  that  I  make  small  account 
of  virginity,  great  as  it  is.  So  great  is  it  indeed,  that 
none  of  the  ancients  were  able  to  hold  to  it.  For  by  the 
great  grace  (that  has  come  to  ws)  what  was  the  most  for- 
midable in  the  view  of  the  prophets  and  the  ancients, 
has  become  to  us  an  easy  matter,  so  that  the  things 
which  to  them  were  the  heaviest,  and  most  extreme, 
namely,  virginity,  and  the  contempt  of  death,  are  now 
thought  nothing  of  (as  difficult,)  even  by  mere  girls. 
So  difficult  then  was  virginity  esteemed,  that  none  at- 
tempted to  practise  it.  Noah,  a  just  man,  and  one  to 
whom  God  himself  bore  witness,  nevertheless  cohabited 
with  a  wife!  as  did  also  Abraham,  and  Isaac,  the  heirs 
of  the  promise.  Joseph,  that  pattern  of  chastity,  yet 
cohabited  with  a  wife!  A  heavy  thing  indeed  was  the 
profession  of  virginity;  nor  until  that  time  did  virginity 
become  efficacious,  when  the  flower  of  virginity  had 
blossomed  (an  allusion  to  our  Lord's  birth  of  a  virgin) 
and  so  it  was  that  none  of  tlie  ancients  (none  living  be- 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  305 

fbre  the  birth  of  Christ)  were  able  to  addict  themselves 
to  the  ascetic  practice  of  virginity. 

"A  great  matter  indeed  it  is  to  rein  the  body.  Paint 
to  me  now  the  figure  of  this  virtue,  and  learn  of  what 
magnitude  it  is;  seeing  that  it  is  waging  a  warfare  which 
knows  no  truce,  even  for  a  day,  a  warfare  worse  than 
that  with  barbarians;  for  the  contest  we  carry  on  with 
these  have  some  interval,  some  truces;  if  now  the  sa- 
vage hordes  assail  us,  now  again  they  desist,  and  there 
is  something  of  order,  and  an  observance  of  seasons,  ad- 
hered to.  But  the  warfare  of  virginity  hath  no  quiet, 
for  the  devil  himself  is  the  enemy,  who  regards  no  sea- 
sons of  attack;  nor  ever  waits  while  his  adversary  pre- 
pares for  the  assault;  but  stands  every  moment  watching 
to  find  the  virgin  stripped,  so  tliathe  may  inflict  upon  her 
an  opportune  wound.  Nay,  so  far  from  being  permitted 
to  rest,  she  carries  her  arch-enemy  about  with  her.  The 
condemned  see  their  prince  and  judge,  only  at  a  season, 
and  do  not  constantly  endure  the  same  torments;  but  the 
virgin,  go  whither  she  may,  bears  her  avenger  in  her 
bosom,  and  supports  her  adversary  in  her  arms,  who  al- 
lows her  no  repose,  at  eventide,  or  in  the  night,  or  in 
the  dawn,  or  at  noon;  but  still  wages  war,  «crov»i/  utot<S»- 
//svof,  >st/Mov  fjtnvvmy )  SO  as  that  an  advantage  may  be  gain- 
ed over  her;    iKKctnrui  s^)'  iKA<mg  a^pu.;  Tif;'^Sovnc  »  KitfAtvo?  jU3L\- 

SuKa;  CTTOKAio/iAivii.  Think  then  what  the  labour  is  which 
this  course  of  life  exacts!  and  yet,  even  those  who  have 
undergone  all  this,  may  hear  the  words — Depart  from 
me,  I  never  knew  you!  And  see  how  great  a  virtue  vir- 
ginity is,  seeing  that  she  hath  for  her  sister — Almsgiving! 
having  nothing  that  can  ever  be  more  arduous,  but  will  be 
above  all.  Wherefore  it  was  that  these  (foolish  virgins) 
entered  not  in,  because  they  had  not,  along  with  their 


306      CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

virginity — almsgiving! — Thou  hast  then  that 

efficacious  mode  of  penance  ahnsgiving,  which  is  able  to 
break  the  chains  of  thy  sins;  but  thou  hast  also  a  way 
of  penitence,  more  ready,  by  which  thou  mayest  rid  thy- 
self of  thy  sins.— Pray  every  hour!" 

These  citations  I  would  not  curtail,  inasmuch  as  they 
tell  upon  our  argument  in  more  ways  than  one.  Let 
them,  fraught  as  thej'  are  with  the  darkest  errors  of  the 
darkest  times  of  the  church,  sink  into  the  mind  of  every 
protestant  who,  while  he  is  being  cautioned  against 
popery^  is  invited  (inveigled  might  we  not  say)  to  accept 
the  overcast  Christianity  of  Chrysostom  and  his  contem- 
poraries. The  practical  amount  of  the  above  cited  pas- 
sages is  this,  and  nothing  better,  that  whoever  could  ap- 
pear at  the  gate  of  heaven  with  virginity  in  the  one  hand, 
and  a  sixpence  of  alms  in  the  other,  might  boldly  claim 
admission.  When  Chrysostom,  drawing  to  a  conclusion, 
afier  dwelling  upon  the  hard-earned  merits  of  celibacy, 
comes  to  say — Nevertheless  all  this  merit  may,  at  the  last, 
avail  its  possessor  nothing;  one  fully  expects  to  hear 
him  add — "unless  it  be  accompanied  with,  and  unless 
it  spring  from,  a  genuine  and  gracious  principle  of  piety;" 
but  such  is  not  the  doctrine  of  this  prince  of  the  Nicene 
church;— virginity,  celestial  virtue  as  it  is,  will  not  pur- 
chase heaven,  apart  from  almsgiving.  Heaven!  what  is 
its  price?  virginity  and  an  obolus!  The  burden  of  sin, 
how  is  it  to  be  got  rid  of?  by  virginity  and  an  eleemosy- 
nary obolus!  Let  us  now  be  plainly  told  whether  pas- 
sages such  as  these,  cited  from  this  principal  divine  of 
the  Nicene  church,  do  really  imbody,  and  fairly  express 
the  doctrine,  and  the  general  tenor  of  the  articles  and 
homilies  of  the  English  church.  Was  it  to  establish 
pharisaic  delusions  so  gross  as  those  which  Chrysostom 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  307 

laboured  to  uphold,  that  the  ilUistrious  victims  of  Mary's 
fury  died  in  the  flames  at  Oxford  and  in  Smithfield? 
The  time  must  come  when  it  will  be  felt,  by  all  ingenu- 
ous minds,  among  the  clergy,  that,  although  the  English 
church  may  have  been  allied  to  the  Nicene,  by  the  re- 
tention of  a  few  untoward  phrases,  in  some  of  its  of- 
fices, the  heart  and  mind  of  the  English  reformers,  and  of 
the  Nicene  fathers,  were  totally  dissimilar:  the  gospel, 
recovered  for  us  by  the  one,  had  little  or  nothing  in 
common  with  the  dreaming  theosophy  of  the  other;  ex- 
cept just  the  nomenclature  of  Christianity.  The  real 
question  now  at  issue  is — whether  we  shall  go  over  to 
Chrysostom,  Ambrose,  and  Basil;  or  stand  fast  by  the 
English  church  and  its  founders. 

That  the  doctrine  advanced  by  Chrysostom,  in  his  ho- 
milies on  repentance,  was  not  a  hasty  rhetorical  flourisli, 
appears  from  its  recurrence,  in  nearly  the  same  terms,  in 
his  exposition  of  the  gospel  of  Matthew  (Horn.  Ixxviii. 
tom.  vii.  p.  848,)  and  where  he  very  distinctly  affirms  that, 
vast  as  is  the  merit  of  virginity,  it  will  not  avail  apart 
from  almsgiving.  We  may,  however,  meet  with  doc- 
trine a  little  less  grossly  erroneous  elsewhere  among  the 
Nicene  expositors:  thus  for  instance  Augustine,  who,  by 
the  way,  appears  to  be  much  less  in  favour  with  the 
Oxford  divines  than  are  his  more  popish  predecessors 
and  contemporaries,  ofl"ers  an  explication  of  the  same 
parable,  which,  making  due  allowance  for  the  style  of 
the  times,  may  be  admitted  as  rational  and  scriptural 
(see  the  Sermon  on  the  Parable,  and,  De  diversis  quest, 
lix.  and  Enarratio  in  Psal.  147)  notwithstanding  the 
conceit  about  the  five  senses,  as  prefigured  by  the  five 
virgins,  and  which  had  been  adopted  by  several  of  the 
fathers.     Jerome's   exposition   approaches,  in  some  de- 


308  coxNExiox  or  the  celibate  with  the 

gree,  thai  of  Augustine;  and  yet  holds  in  part  also  ia 
that  of  Ciirysostom.  Venditur  hoc  oleum,  et  multo  emi- 
tiir  pretio,  ac  difficili  labore  conquiritur,  quod  in  eleemo- 
synh  cunctisque  virlutibus  et  consiliis  intelligimus  ma- 
gistrorum.  (Jerom.  in  loco.)  Hilary  (Comment,  in 
Matt.)  says  that  the  lamps  (flames)  prefigure  the  "  light 
of  those  resplendent  souls  that  shine  in  the  brightness 
of  the  sacrament  of  baptism:  the  oil  is  the  fruit  of  good 
works:  the  vessels  are  the  bodies  of  men,  wiijiin  which 
is  hidden  the  treasure  of  a  good  conscience:  those  who 
sell  this  oil,  are  they  who,  needing  the  aid  of  the  faith- 
ful, make  this  return,  and  by  the  supply  of  their  neces- 
sities, furnish  the  buyers  with  what  they  seek.  These 
(works  ot  charily)  are  the  copious  material  of  a  flame 
that  fails  not.  In  ascending  higher,  we  do  not  meet  with 
notions  much  more  evangelic.  Origen  (in  loco)  says — 
"  those  who  rightly  believe  and  live,  are  properly  com- 
pared to  tlie  five  prudent;  but  those  who,  while  profess- 
ing failh  in  Christ,  have  not  prepared  themselves  by 
good  M'orks  for  salvation,  are  likened  to  the  live  foolish 
virgins." 

Among  those  who  occupy  the  foremost  rank  in  the 
ancient  church,  and  who  are  now,  by  name,  held  up  as 
our  masters  in  theology,  there  are  shades  of  difference, 
and  yet  very  nearly  the  same  mind— -a  mind  dimly  illu- 
minated by  the  apostolic  light,  and  from  which  the  first 
principle  of  Christianity  was  almost  wholly  expelled  by 
a  substantially  false  notion  of  sanctity.  There  is,  how- 
ever, solid  satisfaction,  in  finding  tliat,  while  men  high 
in  station  were,  with  one  consent,  hotly  driving  the 
Christian  world  onwards  toward  the  precipice  into  which 
the  Romish  church  plunged  it  jieadlotig,  there  were 
those,  in  the  shudc,  and  of  obscure  name,  who  held  to  a 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  309 

better  doctrine,  and  who,  as  we  may  well  believe,  dif- 
fused, unnoticed  and  unknown,  a  life-giving  illumination 
of  truth,  within  their  narrow  circles.  Whoever  may- 
have  been  the  author  of  the  Homilies  and  Apophthegms, 
attributed  to  Macarius,  the  Egyptian — a  hermit  of  the 
Nicene  age,  he  evidently  knew  far  more  of  Christianity, 
and  more  clearly  perceived  its  real  intention  than  any  of 
the  great  orators  and  doctors  of  the  same  age.  The  re- 
cord of  the  true  church  is  on  high,  and  we  may  well 
believe  that  our  Lord's  promise  to  be  with  his  church 
always,  has  received  its  accomplishment  from  age  to 
age,  in  relation  to  thousands  whose  names  make  no 
figure  in  the  patristic  folios. 

Without  affirming  more  of  the  following  passages 
than  they  seem  to  deserve,  I  think  they  may  wiili  ad- 
vantage be  contrasted  with  the  quotation  just  above  made 
from  Clirysostom.  "Behold  the  five 'virgins,  prudent 
and  vigilant,  who,  iiastening  to  admit  into  liie  home  of 
their  nature — the  vessel  of  their  heart,  the  oil,  that  is  to 
say,  that  grace  of  the  Spirit  wliich  descends  from  above  " 
(compare  this  with  Chrysostom's  virginity,  lit  up  with 
a  penny's  worth  of  eleemosynary  oil)  "  were  able  to 
enter  with  the  bridegroom  into  the  lieavonly  marriage- 
feast.  Whereas  the  foolish,  abiding  in  their  own  natu- 
ral state,  iv  T»  iSix  <pu7ii  ct7rc/uitvx<ra.{  did  iiot  watcli,  nor  took 
care  to  receive  the  oil  of  gladness  into  their  vessels;  but, 
just  as  they  were  in  the  flesh,  slumbered  through  care- 
lessness, laxity,  and  indolence;  or  through  ignorance, 
and  a  false  notion  of  their  own  righteousness"  (just  such 
a  notion  as  the  language  of  the  fathers  above  cited  tended 
to  foster)  "  wherefore  they  were  shut  out  from  the  royal 
banquet;  not  being  such  as  could  please  the  heavenly 
Bridegroom.  For  being  held  by  the  chain  of  mundane 
aflections,  and  the  love  of  things  earthly,  they  had  not 
27 


310     CONNEXION  OF  THE  CELIBATE  WITH  THE 

rendered  their  entire  hearts,  in  cordial  attachment,  to  tfic? 
heavenly  Sponse,  nor  had  received  the  unction;  where- 
as souls  seeking  to  entertain  the  divine  guest,  to  wit, 
the  sanctification  of  the  Spirit,  are  bound  by  an  undi- 
vided love  to  the  Lord,  and  walk  with  liini,  converse 
with  him  by  prayer,  fix  their  thoughts  upon  him;  from 
all  else  diverted,  and  so  are  deemed  worthy  to  receive 
the  oil  of  the  lieavenly  grace,  and  thence  are  enabled  to 
lead  a  life  without  ofTence,  and  altogether  to  please  the 
spiritual  Bridegroom."     (Macarius,  llom.  iv.) 

Much  might  be  quoted  from  this  same  author,  which, 
saving  a  phrase  or  two  hero  and  there,  would  pass  as 
protestant  and  scriptural  writing;  and  wliich  olfers  al- 
most the  strongest  possible  contrast  to  the  manner  and 
spirit  of  the  great  contemporary  divines.  Ii  is  particu- 
larly to  be  noted  that  this  writer,  although  himself  an  as- 
cetic, a  hermit,  abstains  from  the  favourite  ascetic  topics; 
and  often  speaks  in  disparaging  terms  of  celibacy,  fast- 
ing, and  the  like.  His  style  also,  in  regard  to  the  sa- 
craments, diders  essentially  from  that  current  in  his 
times:  in  a  word,  he  speaks  of  tiiese  means  of  grace  in 
a  manner  befitting  one  wlio  was  spiritually  taught.  It 
is  important  to  mark  the  latent  alliances  of  doctrines,  or 
that  secret  principle  of  afiinity,  which  brings  seeming- 
ly unconnected  notions  into  actual  conjunction.  'J'hus, 
while  the  great  Nicene  writers,  one  and  all,  are  seen  to 
exclude  the  gospel,  and  to  substitute  a  flimsy  home-made 
justification,  hammered  out  of  celibacy,  almsgiving,  fast- 
ing, and  all  tiie  frippery  of  the  ascetic  discipline,  they 
are  also  heard  to  indulge  in  the  wildest  extravagances 
re<i^ardi!ig  the  efficacy  of  the  sacraments,  the  dignity  of 
the  sacerdotal  office,  the  power  of  the  church,  and  the 
like.  They  are  also  heard  invoking  the  saints,  adoring, 
or  near  to  it,   the  relics   of  martyrs,  and  magnifying 


SCHEME  OF  SALVATION.  311 

whatever  is  formal  and  human,  while  they  depress  or 
forget  whatever  is  spiritual  and  divine. 

The  very  reverse,  in  all  these  respects,  is  true  of  our 
obscure  Macarius,  who,  taught  from  above,  rises  supe- 
rior, in  great  measure,  to  the  delusions  of  the  times  he 
lived  in,  of  which  many  striking  instances  might  be  ad- 
duced, and  which  would  make  conspicuous  that  misera- 
ble defection  from  evangelic  principles  which  attaches 
to  those  of  the  Nicene  fathers  who  are  now  being  cited 
as  authorities  in  theology.  The  contrast  is  made  the 
more  pointed,  if  we  keep  to  the  particular  subject  which 
we  have  found  to  be  handled  so  poorly  by  Chrysostom, 
and  others. 

"Unless  humility,  and  simplicity,  and  goodness, 
adorn  our  tempers,  a  form  of  prayer  will  avail  us  no- 
thing; nor  indeed  any  other  labours  we  may  undergo, 
in  preserving  virginity,  or  ihe  like,  .  .  .  and,  destitute  of 
these  graces,  we  shall  take  our  part  with  the  foolish  vir- 
gins, in  the  day  of  judgment,  who,  because  they  had  not 
in  the  vessels  of  their  hearts  the  oil  of  spiritual  grace, 
were  named  fools,  and  were  excluded  from  the  kingdom, 
by  the  spiritual  Bridegroom."  And  elsewhere: — "  un- 
less humility,  simplicity,  love,  cleave  to  us,  our  prayers, 
or,  I  should  rather  say,  the  semblance  or  pretence 
of  prayer,  will  avail  us  nothing;  and  what  is  true  of 
prayer,  is  true  of  other  exercises  of  piety,  even  the  most 
painful  and  laborious,  such  as  virginity,  vigils,  fastings, 
psalmody,  ministrations,  and  such  like  offices  of  a  spe- 
cious godliness.'''     (De  custodia  cordis.) 

We  must  not  indeed  expect  to  find  in  ayiy  writer  of 
the  Nicene  age,  not  even  in  one  wlio,  like  Macarius, 
gives  evidence  of  rational  and  scriptural  piety,  a  clear 
exhibition  of  what  we  emphatically  call  the  gospel;  for 
this  had  too  long  been  lost  sight  of,  to  be  recovered  in 


312  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

its  fulness  and  power  by  any  single  mind.  But  there 
is,  at  the  least — truth  to  a  certain  extent,  as  well  as  the 
ahsence  of  j^ross  and  fatal  errors.  Macariiis  may  be 
read  with  pleasure  and  advanJaffe,  by  those  who  are  bet- 
ter taught  than  himself;  wlide  the  principal  Nicene  fa- 
thers, whatever  benefits  we  may  receive  from  the  peru- 
sal of  them,  are  not  to  be  looked  into  without  distress, 
amazement,  and  the  utmost  caution. 

Some  special  Methods  of  estimating  the  Quality 
OF  the  Nicene  Theology. 

There  is  a  very  simple  method  of  ascertaining  the 
tendency,  and  theological  quality,  of  religious  writings, 
M'hich,  altliough  it  may  seem  a  litUe  arbitrary,  yet  will, 
1  think,  very  seldom  prove  to  be  fallacious:  it  turns  npon 
the  rule  that  a  writer's  selection  of  scripture,  incidental, 
or  formal,  indicates  his  personal  feelinjr,  and  his  doctri- 
nal bias.  'J'liis  ride  would  at  once  be  admitted,  by  many, 
as  a  safe  one,  if  a|»plied  to  some  of  our  modern  ultra 
protestant  writers,  wiio,  while  expounding,  and  quoting, 
a  thousand  times  over,  certain  noted  passages  in  Paul's 
epistles,  are  found  to  advert,  much  less  often,  to  our 
Lord's  discourses,  and  very  sparingly  adduce  any  of  the 
merely  preceptive  portions  of  the  very  epistles,  the  doc- 
trinal parts  of  which  engage  so  much  of  their  attention. 
Why  may  we  not  then  avail  ourselves  of  this  same  rule, 
in  other  directions?  It  surely  has  a  foundation  in  the 
reason  of  things,  and  it  implies  that,  if  at  any  time,  or 
in  any  ])articular  church,  certain  elements  of  truth  have 
lost  their  due  place  in  the  system  of  doctrines,  those 
passages  of  scripture  where  such  elements  are  promi- 
nent, will  be  seldom  adduced,  or  when  adduced,  will  be 
confusedly  and  perversely  expounded. 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  313 

Now,  nothing  can  be  more  striking  than  is  the  result 
of  a  general  survey  of  the  patristic  literature,  as  brought 
to  tiie  criterion  of  this  sjoecial  rule.  Tlie  question  be- 
ing— Did  the  Nicene  divines  themselves  understand,  and 
preach,  the  gospel?  I^ook  to  their  choice  of  scripture — 
the  list  of  texts,  most  in  favour  with  them.  The  gene- 
ral reader  should  be  apprized  that,  in  ahnost  all  the  edi- 
tions of  the  fathers,  there  is  found,  besides  a  general  in- 
dex, rerum  memorabilium,  an  index  also  of  the  passages 
of  scripture  which  the  author  expounds,  or  wiiich  lie  in- 
cidentally cites.  By  the  aid  then  of  these  indices,  a 
pretty  exact  idea  may,  without  much  labour,  be  obtained, 
of  the  feeling  and  doctrinal  tendency  of  these  th.eolo- 
logians,  on  the  ground  of  the  rule  above  advanced.  It 
will  not  be  imajjined  tliat  the  absolute  completeness  or 
correctness  of  these  indices  siiould  be  vouched  for; 
nevertheless,  their  general  accuracy  may  very  safely  be 
affirmed;  nor  do  I  believe  that  the  issue  of  such  an  ex- 
amination would  be  at  all  affected  by  the  few  instances 
of  omission,  v^hicli  a  diligent  research  might  perhaps 
discover. 

Assuming,  then,  tliese  tables  of  texts  cited  or  ex- 
pounded, to  be,  in  the  main,  correct,  we  shall  find,  in 
the  first  place,  that,  with  a  remarkable  uniformity,  they 
otier  to  the  eye  those  half  dozen  texts  which  afford  a 
colour  of  authority  to  the  principles  and  practices  of  the 
ascetic  institute.  Few  indeed  omit  a  reference  to  our 
Lord's  words — Let  him  that  is  able  to  receive  it,  &c.,  or, 
They  neither  marry  nor  are  given  in  marriage,  &c.,  or, 
to  Paul's — It  is  good  for  a  man  not  to  touch  a  woman,  &;c. 
These  tables  exhibit  also,  and  of  this  we  do  not  com- 
plain, an  abundant  gleaning,  nay  a  rich  harvest,  gathered 
from  the  preceptive  portions  of  the    inspired  volume: 

27^ 


314  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

generally,  more  from  the  Old  Testament,  than  from  the 
New,  and  more  from  the  gospels,  than  from  the  epis- 
tles, and  more  from  the  didactic  than  from  tlie  doctrinal 
parts  of  tlie  epistles. 

But  those  noted  passages  which,  to  protestant  ears 
are  the  most  familiar,  and  to  the  well  taught  and  spiritu- 
ally minded,  are  the  most  dear,  such  bright  passages 
are,  in  some  of  these  lists,  altogether  wanting,  and  in 
most  are  the  least  frequently  cited;  or  where  cited,  it  is 
in  a  sense,  or  for  a  purpose,  very  unlike  (as  we  must 
think)  their  true  intention.  Tiiere  are  certain  passages 
wliicli,  setting  forth  in  the  clearest  manner,  the  freeness, 
the  largeness,  and  the  sufficiency  of  the  method  of  sal- 
vation, are  the  first  to  convey  hope  and  joy  to  contrite 
spirits;  and  they  are  the  very  same  wliich  the  most  emi- 
nent (modern)  Christians — t!ie  most  laborious,  and  tlie 
most  I'.oly,  have  clung  to  in  their  last  hours:  they  are 
the  passages,  moreover,  which  the  most  efficient  and 
enlightened  preachers  and  pastors  have  employed  as  the 
key-note  of  their  ministrations,  pul)lic  i\m\  private;  and 
the  very  same  are  what  may  be  cidled  the  hinges  of  con- 
troversy, between  the  first  reformers  and  their  purblind 
antagonists  of  the  Komish  church. 

Now  I  w'.)ulil  earnestly  recommend  tliose  who  are 
conscientiously  determiiied  to  satisfy  themselves,  by 
personal  researches,  concerning  the  great  question  now 
at  issue,  between  the  Nicene  fathers,  and  the  reformers, 
to  pursue  the  suggestion  I  am  here  ofiering,  and  to  as- 
certain (no  very  diflicuU  task)  whether  the  allegation  be 
true  or  not — That  the  great  divines  of  antiqnily  either 
avoid  all  reference  to  j)assages  of  the  kind  now  spoken 
of;  or  cite  them  in  some  incidental  manner,  and  apart 
from  any  expression  of  their  own  feelings;  or,  if  they 
^uole  and  expound  such  passages,  do  it  in  a  perverted 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  315 

tnanner,  and  so  as  to  make  it  certain  that  they  themselves 
discerned  little  or  nothing  of  the  glory  of  Christianity, 
as  therein  expressed.  Tliis  strange  forgetfulness  of 
what,  on  every  account,  claims  our  coustani  regard,  and 
which,  in  modern  times,  has,  on  all  sides  (among  those 
who  have  seriously  addicted  themselves  to  the  study  of 
the  scriptures)  received  the  most  attention,  forces  itself 
upon  our  notice,  whenever  we  open  the  remains  of  an- 
cient Christianity.  Every  thing  is  wrought  up  and  ex- 
panded, and  repeated,  and  expounded — every  thing,  but 
the  gospel  itself!  From  the  apostolic  fathers,  and  Jus- 
tin, down  to  Gregory  I.  and  Eoelhius,  nearly  the  same 
dimness  in  this  respect  attaches  to  all. 

I  am  anxious  to  suggest  to  those  who  will  avail  them- 
selves of  such  aid,  various  and  independent  modes  of 
bringing  to  the  proof,  the  patristic  tlieology,  on  tiiis  most 
serious  alleg-ation,  of  its  sad  deficiency  in  evangelic  feel- 
ing,  as  well  as  doctrine.  Among  these  methods,  I  have 
already  mentioned,  as  peculiarly  conclusive,  an  exami- 
nation of  those  portraits  of  Christianity,  in  the  concrete, 
with  which  the  works  of  the  fathers  abound.  To  this 
criterion,  let  it  be  objected  that  the  false  rhetorical  taste 
of  the  times  may  perhaps  have  hidden  from  us,  in  such 
instances,  the  simple  evangelic  element,  of  which  we 
are  in  search,  and  which  actually  attached,  as  well  to 
the  orator  as  to  the  subject  of  his  too  flowery  declama- 
tion. Be  it  so;  but  is  it  not  a  rule  in  historical  science, 
that,  though  men  may  often,  after  their  death,  be  painted 
in  false  colours,  by  their  admiring  friends,  they  will  be 
found  to  have  truly  painted  themselves,  in  their  letters 
to  their  intimate  associates? 

Now  if  this  rule  be  a  good  one,  I  fear  its  application 
to  the  Nicene  divines  will  exhibit  them  in  no  very  ad- 
vantageous light,  personally,  as  Christian  men.     That 


316  MEANS  OF   ESTIMATING  THE 

they  were,  most  of  them,  sincere,  devout,  assiduous  in 
their  duties,  and  anxiously  intent  upon  the  welfare  of 
the  churches  under  their  care,  is  incontestably  proved 
by  these  remains.  But  does  it  appear  from  the  same 
documents,  that  their  hearts  were  warmed  by  those 
truths  which  are  the  glory  of  the  Christian  system,  and 
which,  when  so  entertained,  impart  an  unction,  and  an 
animation  to  Christian  communion?  1  think  the  affir- 
mative cannot  be  pretended  in  favour  of  these  divines,  by 
even  their  most  devoted  admirers.  What  can  be  more 
dead  and  trivial  than  a  large  proportion  of  the  epistolary 
remains  of  the  ancient  church?  I  will  not  name  the 
epistles  of  Synesius,  or  those  of  Gregory  Nazianzen; 
but  what  are  those  even  of  Basil,  or  Ambrose,  or  Chry- 
sostom?  If  these  specimens  of  ancient  Christian  friend- 
ship are  found,  generally,  to  breathe  a  siinple-hearted 
evangelic  piety,  or  to  glow  witii  an  apostolic  zeal  for 
the  fartherance  of  a  pure  gospel,  then  let  it  be  acknow- 
ledged that  whatever  unfavourable  inferences  may  seem 
to  have  resulted  from  a  perusal  of  other  portions  of  the 
early  Christian  literature,  wc  have  been  mistaken  in  the 
estimate  we  have  formed  of  the  men  and  of  the  system. 
Are  the  advocates  of  Nicene  Christianity  willing  to 
abide  by  the  result  of  a  full  examination  of  the  extant 
patristic  epistles?  I  suppose  not;  and  yet  it  does  not 
appear  why  the  criterion  should  not  be  regarded  as  a 
fair  and  conclusive  one.  Putting  out  of  view,  for  a  mo- 
ment, their  inspiration,  we  think  ourselves  able,  in  read- 
ing the  apostolic  epistles,  to  say  what  subjects  were 
uppermost  in  the  minds  of  the  writers;  nor  can  proles- 
tant  readers  of  the  Bible  find  themselves  at  a  loss  in  de- 
termining, from  these  documents,  whether  the  religion 
of  the  writers  was  a  system  of  fear,  servility,  bodily 
service,  ascetic   virtue,   credulity,  exaggeration,  sacra- 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  317 

mental  mystification,  and  ecclesiastical  arrogance;  or  a 
system  of  warmth,  affection,  hope,  joy,  love,  substan- 
tial virtue,  and  real  holiness.  Now,  judging  of  the 
Nicene  writers  precisely  in  the  same  way,  that  is  to 
say,  by  the  general  tenor  and  apparent  temper  of  their 
letters  to  the  churches,  or  to  their  individual  friends,  is 
there  any  one  bold  enough  to  affirm  that  the  former,  not 
the  latter,  are  the  characteristics  of  these  remains,  and  to 
invite  ample  citations,  in  support  of  so  perilous  a  chal- 
lenge? I  can  only  mention  these  methods  of  proof,  and 
express  the  hope  that  the  conscientious  inquirer  will 
avail  himself  of  them. 

There  is,  however,  another  criterion,  which  might 
^vith  advantage  be  appealed  to.  What  I  mean  is  an  ex- 
amination of  the  subjects  selected  by  the  Nicene  writers, 
as  their  favourite  themes;  or  as  those  which  they  tiiought 
themselves  the  most  imperatively  called  upon  to  treat. 
Now,  the  religious  literature  of  any  age  may  be  loosely 
classified,  as  consisting  of — Expositions  of  scripture, 
whether  consecutive  or  incidental — Polemic  treatises  on 
the  points  in  controversy  at  that  time— Free,  or  as  we 
may  say,  spontaneous  disquisitions,  whether  in  the  ho- 
miletic  form,  or  otherwise,  upon  the  chief  subjects  of 
practical  piety,  and  of  Christian  morals — Treatises, 
mainly  philosophical,  or  critical,  yet  bearing  upon  theo- 
logy;— and  lasdy,  though  not  of  least  account.  Compo- 
sitions bearing  upon  ecclesiastical  order,  ritual,  and  the 
actual  government  or  welfare  of  particular  churches.  In 
taking  a  glance,  then,  at  the  contents  of  the  seventy  or 
eighty  folios  which  comprise  the  choice  of  the  Nicene 
theology,  we  might  dismiss,  as  not  so  pertinent  to  our 
immediate  object,  two  of  the  above-named  classes,  name- 
ly, the  Polemical,  and  the  Philosophical,  and  examine 
the  remaining  three.     In  the  present  instance,  however, 


318  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

I  can  only  offer  a  remark  upon  the  first,  namely,  the 
ancient  expositions — a  subject  indeed  so  wide  and  va- 
rious, that  it  would  be  absurd  to  make  a  cursory  allusion 
to  it,  except  in  reference  to  particular  and  well-defined 
points.  A  limited  reference  then,  of  this  sort,  I  will 
proceed  to  make. 

In  looking  broadly  at  the  ancient  expositions  of  Scrip- 
ture, tlie  well-known,  and  prominent  characteristic  of 
many  of  them,  namely,  the  mythic,  or  allegorizing  inter- 
pretation of  its  plain  histories,  and  simple  statements  of 
fact,  has  a  meaning  which,  I  think,  has  been  too  little 
adverted  to.  This  propensity  to  mystify  the  plainest 
things,  may  be,  and  has  been,  attributed  to  the  opera- 
tion of  several  independent  causes;  but  there  is  one 
which,  although  the  less  obvious,  was,  as  I  am  persuaded, 
the  principal  and  the  most  constant.  If  Origen  be 
named  (whether  justly  or  not)  as  tlie  author  of  this  alle- 
gorizing method,  he  will  aid  us,  as  we  sliall  see,  in 
tracing  it  up  to  its  secret  source — that  same  gnostic 
feeling,  which  explains  so  many  otlier  characteristics  of 
ancient  Christianity.  A  reference  to  two  or  three  places 
in  this  learned,  amiable,  and  pious  writer,  will  exclude 
any  doubt  as  to  the  fact,  that  the  Christian  church,  par- 
ticipating with  the  gnostics,  in  those  sickly  and  oriental 
notions  of  the  divine  nature,  which  led  the  latter,  as 
heretics,  to  attribute  the  visible  creation  to  an  inferior 
and  imperfect  being,  and  to  regard  the  Jewish  history, 
and  economy,  as  unworthy  of  the  supreme  goodness  and 
wisdom,  this  deep  gnostic  feeling  impelled  the  Chris- 
tian expositors  to  rid  themselves,  as  far  as  might  be,  of 
difficulties  so  formidable,  first,  and  where  it  could  be 
done,  by  roundly  affirming  that  certain  narrations,  in  the 
Old  Testament,  are  not  histories  of  facts,  but  pure  alle- 
gories, or  mythic  inventions,  conveying  spiritual  truths; 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.       319 

secondly,  where  tliis  bold  hypothesis  was  altogether  in- 
admissible, or  where  its  adoption  was  not  hazarded,  by 
merely  diverting  the  attention  from  the  plain  history,  in 
the  copious  use  of  ingenious  accommodations;  that  is  to 
say,  allegories  appended  to  the  history,  where  the  his- 
tory could  not  be  absolutely  melted  down  into  fable.  So 
much  for  the  mode  of  interpreting  scripture,  in  avoid- 
ance of  gnostic  objections.  But  there  remained  a  rather 
more  difhcult  task,  imposed  by  the  same  gnostic  senti- 
mentality, v/hich  was  that  of  reconciling  the  gnostic  no- 
tion of  the  divine  nature,  as  pure  and  wise,  with  the 
constitution  of  the  animal  creation.  Now,  this  task  was 
connected  v/ith  the  interpretation  of  scripture,  by  the 
means  of  allegorizing  disquisitions  upon  the  Mosaic  ac- 
count of  the  six  days'  work.  It  was  not  indeed  that  the 
lion,  the  tiger,  the  crocodile,  the  adder,  the  vulture,  the 
shark,  could  be  spoken  of  as  other  than  they  are;  but 
yet,  while  a  thousand  gay  conceits  concerning  the  ''  spi- 
ritual meaning,"  couched  under  these  untoward  natures, 
could  be  held  before  the  mind,  something  was  done,  and 
a  respite  was  obtained  from  the  tormenting  pressure  of 
the  theosophic  conception  of  the  Deity. 

Ample,  and  really  amusing  illustrations  of  what  I  am 
now  affirming,  may  be  met  with  by  referring  to  the 
Hexaemeron  of  Ambrose;  where  the  forms,  qualities, 
habits,  of  fishes,  reptiles,  birds,  and  beasts,  are  con- 
vincingly shown  to  adumbrate  all  points  of  theology  and 
morals.  And  to  what  lengths  did  this  irresistible  infatu- 
ation carry  so  respectable  a  writer?  To  what  use,  for 
instance,  does  he  dare  to  convert  the  (misunderstood)  na- 
tural history  of  the  vulture?  Let  the  reader  look  to  the 
twentieth  chapter  of  the  fifth  book,  and  amidst  his 
amazement  and  disgust,  acknowledge  the  proof  he  there, 
and  elsewhere,  finds,  of  the  presence  of  a  motive,  pow- 


320  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

erful  enough  to  overthrow  all  soundness  of  judgment^ 
and  to  violate  all  religious  decorum.  Nonne  advertimus 
quod  Dominus  ex  ipsa  natura  plurima  exempla  ante  prae- 
misit,  quibus  susceptae  incarnationis  decorem  probaret, 
et  adstrueret  veritatem.  Basil  makes  the  same  offensive 
use  of  the  same  ridiculous  fable;  and  throughout  his 
Hexaemeron  employs  a  rich  invention  in  what  he,  and 
others,  considered  as  the  laLid:\ble  endeavour,  not  so 
much  to  derive  lessons  of  piety  from  the  natural  world, 
as  lo  obviate,  or  supersede,  the  terrible  gnostic  objection 
to  the  mundane  system,  as  impure  and  sanguinary.  But 
Ave  must  return  for  a  moment  to  the  mythic  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Old  'J'estament  history,  and  see  in  what  way 
Origen  opens  up  to  us  tbe  real  motive  of  this  practice. 

The  principle  of  allegorical  interpretation  which  he 
adopted,  is  stated  and  defended,  as  well  incidentally  as 
formally,  in  many  parts  of  his  writings,  and,  among  the 
reasons  adduced  in  behalf  of  it  is  this,  liiat  it  aids  us  in  un- 
derstanding passages  which,  if  literally  interpreted,  would 
either  involve  contradictions,  or  be  offensive,  and  tend 
to  encourage  sentiments  and  practices  elsewhere  explicit- 
ly condemned  (see  the  Fragment  on  Galaiians,  tom.  i.  p. 
43,  Benediciine,  and  more  ai  length,  in  the  De  Principiis, 
lib.  iv.)  lie  formally  assumes  a  license  for  considering 
as  allegory,  whatever,  even  in  the  plainest  narrations^ 
does  not  seem  to  consist  with  certain  received  notions  of 
what  was  fitting  in  the  divine  dispensations,  or  in  the 
conduct  of  the  patriarchs.  That  this  principle  of  inter- 
pretation sprung,  not  merely  from  the  wish  to  obviate 
gnostic  objections,  but  from  a  latent  admission  of  their 
force,  appears  clearly  enough  from  the  tenor  of  the  fol- 
lowing passage;  especially  when  compared  with  the 
places  in  which  the  rule  of  allegorical  exposition  is  ac- 
tually applied  to  particular  instances.      Origen,  having. 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  321 

established  the  inspiration  of  the  scriptures,  states  the 
necessity  of  laying  down  such  a  rule  of  interpretation, 
as  shall  exclude  the  cavils  and  false  assumptions  of  Jews 
and  heretics. 

"  These  latter,  when  they  read  such  texts  as  these — a 
fire  is  kindled  by  my  wrath,"  &;c.  .  .  .  and  a  thousand 
things  of  the  like  kind,  have  not  indeed  dared  to  deny 
that  these  scriptures  are  from  a  God;  but  then  they  sup- 
pose them  to  have  proceeded  from  the  demiurge,  whom 
the  Jews  worship,  an  imperfect,  and  not  benevolent  be- 
ing; and  they  affirm  tliat  the  Saviour  has  come  to  an- 
nounce to  mankind  a  more  perfect  Deity,  whom  they 
deny  to  be  the  same  as  the  demiurge,  or  creator  of  this 
world.  Having  once  strayed  from  the  truth,  they  have 
adopted  various  opinions,  at  the  suggestion  of  their  fancy, 
and  have  adopted  notions  concerning  the  visible  and  the 
invisible  worlds,  as  attributable  to  different  creators. 
There  are  moreover,  even  within  the  pale  of  the  church, 
some  of  the  simpler  sort,  and  who  mainly  hold  to  the  true 
theology,  and  who  yet  (in  consequence  of  their  adhe- 
rence to  the  literal  sense  of  scripture)  think  of  the  true 

God  in  the  most  unworthy  manner Now  the  sole 

cause  of  ail  the  errors  above  referred  to,  whether  of  the 
impious,  or  of  the  simple-minded,  is  the  habit  of  under- 
standing scripture  not  in  the  spiritual  (or  mystic)  but  in 
the  naked  and  literal  sense."  Our  author  then  proceeds, 
at  great  length,  to  expound  and  to  recommend  his  own 
remedial  system  of  interpretation;  which,  as  he  thinks, 
will  enable  us  to  evade  every  difficulty,  and  to  preserve, 
unimpaired,  those  just  and  elevated  notions  @f  the  divine 
purity,  justice,  and  benevolence,  which  the  gospel  con- 
veys. 

It  is  manifest  then,  and  other  passages  might  be  cited 
to  the  same  effect,  that,  with  Origen,  who  was  the  au- 
28 


322  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

ihor,  or  great  promoter  of  the  mythic  mode  of  interpre- 
tation, the  primary  motive  for  its  adoption  was  a  tacit  ad- 
mission of  the  gnostic  sentiment  and  doctrine.  This 
system  of  exegesis,  violent  as  it  was,  and  shocking  to 
common  sense,  and  precarious  too,  for  it  could  not  be 
applied  to  all  cases,  even  to  those  the  most  needing  it, 
has  often,  by  modern  writers,  been  attributed  merely  to 
*'  a  false  taste,"  or  to  an  "  ambition  of  ingenuity,"  or 
to  an  oriental  exuberance  of  the  imagination.  But  we  see 
that  it  had  a  deeper  and  a  more  serious  meaning,  and 
that  it  is  the  indication  of  what  I  have  called  a  gnostic 
feeling,  strong  in  the  minds  even  of  those  who  were  the 
most  decisive  opponents  of  the  gnostic  heresies.  The 
broad  expression  of  this  same  feeling  we  have  found  un- 
der another  form — the  doctrine  and  practice  of  abstrac- 
tive asceticism  and  celibacy,  and  have  thus  obtained  in- 
cidental, and  yet  conclusive  proof  of  the  oneness  and 
consistency  of  that  system  which,  in  the  Nicene  age, 
had  come  into  the  place  of  apostolic  Christianity. 

I  wish  especially,  on  this  occasion,  to  point  out  the 
slightness  and  fallacy  of  the  mode  in  which  modern  wri- 
ters have  allowed  themselves  to  allude,  with  an  incu- 
rious and  affected  scorn,  to  the  characteristic  features  of 
ancient  Christianity.  "Monkery  and  asceticism" — 
they  were  the  "  follies  of  the  age;" — "  superstitious  no- 
tions and  practices;" — the  human  mind  had  then  "  be- 
come enfeebled;" — "  the  mystic  interpretation  of  scrip- 
ture"— "  the  fathers  were  men  of  more  imagination  than 
judgment;"  and,  in  a  word,  "  we,  better  taught  as  we 
are,  may  just  glance  at  these  errors,  and  pass  on." 
This  frivolous  style,  unsatisfactory  and  unphilosnphical 
as  it  is,  might  have  passed  as  sufficient  in  the  times  that 
are  gone,  or  that  are  going  by;  but  it  is  now  becoming  not 
simply  obsolete  and  inappropriate,  but  seriously  delusive 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  323 

and  dangerous;  inasmuch  as  it  favours  the  supposition 
that  ancient  Christianity,  although  disfigured  by  some 
blemishes,  was  yet,  as  compared  with  the  Romanism  of 
later  times,  pure  and  sound. 

A  more  exact,  and  I  must  needs  say,  a  more  philoso- 
phical analysis  of  the  ancient  church  system,  will,  as  I 
am  fully  persuaded,  serve  to  convince  all  unprejudiced 
minds  that  these  trivial  imperfections,  or  "follies,"  as 
we  have  been  taught  to  call  them,  were,  in  truth,  the 
several  symptoms  of  one  and  the  same  deep-seated  dis- 
ease; and  that,  for  instance,  things  so  seemingly  uncon- 
nected and  independent  as  we  may  think  the  profession 
of  virginity,  and  the  mythic  interpretation  of  scripture, 
both  sprang,  in  no  circuitous  manner,  from  one  princi- 
ple, and  that  principle  nothing  else  but  the  rudiment  of 
the  Asiatic  theosophy.  But  then,  this  same  sovereign 
cause  gave  law  to  every  thing  else,  or  to  every  thing 
which  distinguishes  the  Nicene,  from  the  apostolic 
church.  Hence  the  danger  of  borrowing  notions,  rites, 
and  practices,  from  a  system  which  had  come  under  the 
tyrannous  control  of  a  foreign  and  fatal  influence. 

But  there  are  peculiarities  attaching  to  the  ancient  mode 
of  expounding  scripture  which  demand  to  be  noticed  as 
illustrating  our  present  position,  that  the  great  Nicene 
writers  were,  in  a  very  low  degree,  conscious  of  those 
truths  which  protestants  regard  as  constituting  the  glory 
and  peculiarity  of  the  gospel. 

I  have  already  mentioned  that  omission  of  the  most 
vividly  evangelic  portions  of  scripture,  which  appears 
when  we  examine  the  indices  of  texts  cited  by  the  fa- 
thers. But  when  we  open  what  professes  to  be  a  con- 
secutive exposition  of  an  epistle  fraught  with  the  most 
animating  passages,  we  feel  as  it",  now  at  least,  we  must 
discover  what  was  the  feeling  of  the  writers;  for  how 


324  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

can  they  avoid  what  stands  directly  in  their  path,  and  in  a 
path  chosen  by  themselves?  How  avoid  such  evangelic 
passages?  Sometimes  by  neatly  leaping  overthem!  Of 
which  several  instances  may  be  found  in  Chrysoslom's 
expositions  of  the  Pauline  epistles.  These  serious  la- 
cunae in  certain  noted  ancient  expositions,  would,  if  the 
continuity  of  the  discourse  did  not  preclude  the  sup- 
position, make  one  think  that  a  leaf,  here  and  there,  had 
been  torn  from  the  manuscript.  But,  if  passages  of  the 
kind  now  referred  to  are  not  actually  passed  over,  they 
are  too  often  expounded  in  a  style  that  is  dry  and  cold, 
or  ambiguous,  or  positively  erroneous. 

In  support  of  this  representation  I  must  confine  myself 
to  one  or  two  instances,  but  they  will  be  such  as  to  carry 
the  inference  appended  to  them.  Chrysostom's  mode  of 
exposition  is  characterised  by  its  dilfuseness,  and  pro- 
lixity; and  we  may  say,  in  a  sense,  its  comprehensive- 
ness. He  stands,  moreover,  by  general  suffrage,  at  the 
head  of  tiie  Nicene  divines,  and  is  surely  second  to 
none  of  them  as  an  expositor — all  qualities  taken  toge- 
ther. We  may  safely,  therefore,  bring  him  forward  as  an 
authoritative  instance. 

The  seventh  homily  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans 
contains  a  diffuse  exposition  of  the  latter  portion  of  the 
third  chapter;  and  it  is  such  as  would,  probably,  sa- 
tisfy many  modern  readers,  clearly  affirming  as  it  does, 
that  salvation  is  God's  free  gift;  a  gift  received  by  faith, 
and  not  to  be  obtained  by  the  observance  of  the  Jewish 
law.  So  far  all  is  well;  and  one  is  happy,  too,  to  meet 
with  so  much  of  truth;  but  yet  no  such  distinction  is 
observed  as  warrants  our  supposing  that  Chrysostoni 
had,  in  his  mind,  the  important  difference  between  the 
"  making  jubt,'^  and  the  justifijing,  or  declaring  just, 
in  a  forensic  sense;  nor  does  he  kindle  upon  the  theme, 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  325 

nor  take  the  occasion  to  awaken  the  hearts  of  his  hearers, 
as  a  modern  preacher  would  not  fail  to  do;  but  he  slides 
off  immediately  into  ethical  disquisitions,  which,  pro- 
per as  they  may  be  in  themselves,  yet,  in  ihe  connexion 
in  which  they  come,  must  have  tended  to  cherish,  rather 
the  legal,  than  the  evangelic  feeling  of  those  whom  he 
addressed.  The  phrase  i^^iciv^s  Jinuiong  ttciuv,  might  sug- 
gest the  belief,  that,  justification  by  faith,  in  the  protes- 
tant  sense,  was  intended;  but  when  we  turn  to  the 
places  where  the  same  writer  declares  his  opinion  of  the 
justifying  efficacy  of  baptism,  it  becomes  but  too  evi- 
dent, that  such  an  expression,  and  much  besides,  which 
might  by  itself  seem  unexceptionable,  really  meant  a  far 
different  doctrine;  how  different,  let  those  say  who  have 
read  and  considered  the  two  exhortations  addressed  to 
the  candidates  for  baptism.  (See  especially  the  passage, 
torn.  i.  p.  269.)  "  Although  a  man  should  be  foul  with 
every  vice,  the  blackest  that  can  be  named,  yet,  should 
he  fall  into  the  baptismal  pool,  he  ascends  from  the  di- 
vine waters,  purer  than  the  beams  of  noon."  This, 
then,  was  Chrysostom's  sense  of  the  "making  just  in  a 
moment."  In  truth,  this  is  placed  beyond  doubt  by 
what  soon  follows — "  They  who  approach  the  baptismal 
font,  although  fornicators,  &c.,  are  not  only  made  clean, 
but  holy  also,  and  just,  uytov;  actt  S'lx.xtovs- 

Nothing  is  more  necessary,  in  looking  into  the  fathers, 
than  to  be  guarded  against  the  illusion  of  attributing  an 
evangelic  sense  to  phrases  and  passages  which  can  be  so 
understood  only  so  long  as  we  attribute  to  them  a  mo- 
dern sense;  but  which,  when  collated  with  other  pas- 
sages in  the  same  writer,  are  found  to  have  borne,  in  the 
mind  of  the  ancient  church,  a  meaning  totally  different; 
and,  as  we  must  think,  a  meaning  miserably  erroneous. 
Let  us  not  then  be  referred  to  Chrysostom's  exposition 
28*' 


326  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  in  proof  of  the  substan- 
tial soundness  of  his  opinions,  until  there  be  adduced 
also  passages,  such  as  the  one  now  cited,  where,  what- 
ever a  protestant  miglit  wish  to  say  of  justification  by 
faith,  and  of  salvation  by  grace  without  works,  is  at- 
tached to  the  baptismal  rite,  as  its  constant  and  proper 
effect.  Nothing  would  be  easier  than,  by  an  artfully  se- 
lected series  of  quotations,  to  make  Chrysostom  preach 
like  Luther,  or  even  Calvin;  but  let  Chrysostom  be  al- 
lowed to  expound  Chrysostom,  and  then  the  illusion  is 
dispelled.  "  As  a  spark  thrown  into  the  ocean,  is  in- 
stantly extinguished,  so  is  sin,  be  it  what  it  may,  extin- 
guislied  when  the  man  is  thrown  into  the  laver  of  rege- 
neration." Nay,  he  comes  forth  another  man.  Tiiat 
the  highest  possible  importance  was  attached  to  the 
tnere  rite,  appears  from  the  way  in  which  it  is  every 
where  spoken  of",  and  particularly  when  the  preacher  is 
reprehending  those — loo  many,  who  deferred  baptism  to 
their  last  hour,  and  who,  irrespectively  of  their  stale  of 
mind,  or  moral  condition,  are  solemnly  declared  to  be 
liable,  until  so  regenerated,  to  eternal  torments.  But 
this  is  a  subject  too  weighty  to  be  cursorily  treated,  and 
which  will  demand  hereafter  the  fullest  explication. 
The  instance  may  be  enough  to  illustrate  my  mean- 
ing, in  saying  that,  what  may  seem  the  most  evangelic 
and  unexceplionable  in  the  patristic  expositions,  must  al- 
ways be  held  as  worth  only  what  it  will  appear  to  mean, 
after  the  author's  sense  of  the  phrases  he  employs  lias 
been  ascertained  from  himself;  and  has  heen  entirely 
disengaged  from  our  protestant  modes  of  thinking. 

What  were  Chrysostom's  candidates  for  baptism  likely 
to  be  thinking  of,  supposing  lliem  to  have  been  sincere 
and  devout?     Was  it  the  grace  and  power  of  the  divine 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  327 

Saviour,  in  whom,  if  they  were  at  that  time  fit  subjects 
for  the  rite,  they  had  already  believed,  or  was  it  the  ab- 
stract doctrine  of  justification  by  faith,  or  indeed  any 
doctrine,  or  any  slate  of  mind,  truly  called  spiritual?  It 
might  have  been  so;  but  the  direct  tendency  of  the 
preacher's  very  solemn  discourse,  on  this  occasion,  was 
(tlie  human  mind  being  such  as  it  is)  to  make  them  think 
intently,  and  almost  exclusively,  of  the  rite  of  baptism — 
the  "  pool  of  regeneration  and  justification,"  a  descent 
into  which  was  the  turning  point  of  salvation — the  wicket, 
in  passing  through  which  the  man  made  his  way  in  a 
moment,  from  the  confines  of  the  pit  of  eternal  misery, 
and  set  foot  upon  tlie  terra  firma  of  eternal  life: — this 
pool,  hiding  beneath  its  sparkling  surfat^e  the  most  tre- 
mendous mysteries,  was  almost  certain  to  fix  the  eyes 
of  the  trembling  candidate,  in  the  previous  moment  a 
child  of  wrath,  unregenerate,  unjustified,  and,  should  any 
accident  intervene,  unsaved.  To  such  a  one,  nay,  to 
far  the  larger  proportion  of  all  who  approached  the  awful 
brink  of  those  wonder-working  waters,  the  rite  took  the 
place  of  the  spiritual  reality,  and  of  the  Saviour. 

This  point,  although  it  lead  us  a  little  from  our  direct 
path,  we  must  insist  upon  a  moment.  In  considering, 
practically,  the  eff'ect  of  difi'erent  modes  of  presenting  re- 
ligious truths  to  the  mass  of  minds,  the  question  is  not, 
whether  such  and  such  great  principles,  acknowledged 
to  be  momentous,  are  sometimes  ofi'ered  to  the  view  of 
the  people;  but  rather  this,  whether  they  are -so  offered 
as  that  the  several  elements  of  religion  are  seen  in  their 
true  perspective — the  foremost,  foremost;  the  hindermost, 
hindermost?  Every  tiling  depends  upon  this  perspective, 
even  all  the  vast  diff'erence  between  a  saving  gos])eI,  and  a 
pernicious  delusion.    And  in  considering  such  a  question, 


328  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

in  a  practical  manner,  we  must  take  into  the  account? 
not  the  nice  and  well-compacted  notions  of  a  few  cul- 
tured minds,  well  trained  in  analysis,  and  synthesis, 
and  order;  but  must  have  regard  to  the  thousand,  the 
many,  who,  purely  passive  as  to  whatever  is  intellec- 
tual, will  accept  things,  just  as  they  are  offered  to  them. 
It  is  precisely  on  this  ground  of  practical  wisdom,  that 
we  (protestants)  are  used  utterly  to  reject  the  fine  papis- 
tical apologies  that  have  been  offered  for  image  worship, 
and  the  supplication  of  the  saints.  Tell  us  not  how  the 
few  may  possibly  steer  clear  of  fatal  errors,  and  avoid  a 
gross  idolatry,  while  admitting  such  practices.  What 
will  be  their  effect  with  tlie  multitude?  The  actual  con- 
dition of  the  mass  of  the  people  in  all  countries  where 
popery  has  been  unchecked,  gives  us  a  sufficient  answer 
to  this  question;  nor  do  we  scruple  to  condemn  these 
practices  as  abominable  idolatries.  Tell  us  not  how 
Fenelon,  or  Pascal,  miglit  extricate  themselves  from  this 
impiety:  what  are  the  frequenters  of  churches  in  Na- 
ples, and  Madrid?  nothing  better  than  the  grossest  poly- 
theists,  and  far  less  rationally  religious,  than  were  their 
ancestors  of  the  times  of  Numa  and  Pythagoras. 

When  the  eye  opens  upon  a  wide  and  splendid  pros- 
pect, idly  gazing  upon  it,  all  its  parts  are  depicted  on 
the  retina,  as  well  as  present  to  tiie  mind.  Say,  how- 
ever, to  the  listless  spectator — "  If  you  keep  your  eye 
fixed  upon  yonder  obscure  cottage,  you  will  presently 
see  the  greatest  monarch  on  earth  issue  from  it,"  and 
the  effect  would  be  instantly,  that,  although  the  same 
width  of  landscape  was  still  before  the  organ — the  same 
fields,  groves,  rivers,  mountains,  palaces,  painted  on  the 
retina;  yet  nothing  would  be  present  to  tlie  mind,  nothing 
but  this  cottage.     The  law  of  intellectual  vision  is  pre- 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  329 

cisely  analogous  to  this.  It  means  nothing  to  say, 
"such  and  such  important  objects  have  been  placed 
within  the  view  of  those  whom  we  instruct:" — upon 
which,  among  these  objects,  has  the  mind  been  concen- 
trated? All  else  is  nearly  as  if  it  were  not.  And  it  is, 
moreover,  to  be  remembered,  that,  according  to  the  in- 
variable laws  of  the  human  mind,  while  the  power  to  take 
a  comprehensive  and  just  view  of  various  objects,  lying 
together  within  the  field  of  vision,  belongs  to  the  calmest 
minds  only;  and,  in  their  several  degrees,  to  every  mind 
in  its  calmest  moments,  the  exclusiveness  of  the  mind's 
regard  to  single  objects,  is  always  directly  as  the  amount 
of  emotion  at  the  time.  Agitate  the  soul,  in  any  way, 
excite  its  fears,  hopes,  or  any  of  the  passions,  and  then 
instantly,  and  just  in  proportion  to  the  excitement^  will 
the  mind  lose  its  consciousness  of  all  but  the  single  ex- 
citing object.  Show  a  man  the  muzzle  of  a  loaded  can- 
non, peeping  from  a  thicket,  in  the  distance,  and  whence 
he  may  every  moment  expect  his  death;  show  him,  on 
the  broad  bosom  of  a  tumbling  sea,  an  open  boat,  in 
which  his  wife  and  children  are  tossing,  between  hope 
and  despair,  and  what  else  will  he  see! 

Now  this  law  of  our  nature,  a  law  taking  sovereign 
hold  of  the  mass  of  mankind;  indeed  of  all  but  a  very 
few,  has  a  most  important  bearing  upon  the  style  and 
topics  of  popular  religious  instruction.  You  may  disre- 
gard, if  you  will,  the  due  perspective  of  objects  when 
you  are  coldly  lecturing  upon  philosophy;  but  to  fall 
into  this  error  of  position  and  proportion,  when  the  stir- 
ring motives  of  eternity,  when  the  alternatives  of  heaven 
and  hell,  are  quickening  the  most  intense  emotions,  and 
stimulating  the  most  vivid  anxieties,  to  do  so,  in  such  in- 
stances, is  the  same  thing  as  to  teach,  in  a  positive  form, 
the  blackest  heresies:  no  heresy  can  be  really  more  fatal 


330  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

than  is  the  practical  error  of  presenting  the  objects  of  re- 
ligious regard  in  an  inverted  order,  to  a  mind  deeply 
moved  by  religious  sentiments.  It  is  cruel  mockery,  in 
such  a  case  to  say — "  nay,  we  set  forth  all  the  truth." 
On  what  point  was  the  anxious  eye  fixed? 

Now  I  am  persuaded  that  the  merits  of  the  general 
system  of  popular  teaching  as  practised  by  the  ancient 
church,  as  well  as  the  soundness  of  what  are  now  termed 
"church  doctrines,"  if  judged  of  according  to  this  rule 
— a  rule  founded  upon  the  first  principles  of  human  na- 
ture, may  readily  be  determined;  and  the  result  of  ap- 
plying such  a  criterion  will  be  to  reject,  as  far  worse 
than  positive  heresy,  that  practical  dislocation  of  objects 
which  was  the  characteristic  of  ancient  Christianity,  and 
which  is  the  characteristic  of  the  Oxford  Tract  "  church 
doctrines."  Let  us  apply  this  criterion  for  a  moment, 
and  in  doing  so,  take  the  ground,  and  admit  the  premises, 
of  the  Oxford  Tract  writers. 

In  one  of  the  most  ingenious,  specious,  candid,  and 
attractive  of  these  publications,  (No.  85,)  perhaps  the 
most  so,  after  that  on  *'  Reserve  in  communicating  reli- 
gious knowledge,"  the  difficulties  under  which  '•church 
principles  "  labour,  as  resting  upon  very  slender  and  in- 
direct proofs,  are  fully  and  fairly  stated — stated,  and  (let 
it  be  granted)  mitigated,  if  not  removed;  nay,  I  would  al- 
low, so  far  removed,  or  the  pressure  of  them  so  Air  re- 
lieved, as  to  prevent  their  being  fatal  to  those  doctrines 
—other  considerations  which  weigh  against  them,  not 
now  admitted.  It  is  granted  by  the  writer,  that  these 
doctrines,  such  as  the  divine  right  of  episcopacy,  the 
apostolic  succession,  the  power  of  the  church,  the  effi- 
cacy of  tlie  sacraments,  the  sacrificial  virtue  of  the  Lord's 
supper,  and  so  forth,  are  wanting  in  direct  or  satisfacto- 
ry proof,  and  are  to  be  established,  if  at  all,  only  by  the 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY,  331 

aid  of  very  attenuated,  and  nicely  managed  inferential 
arguments.  "Every  one  must  allow,"  says  the  writer, 
speaking  in  the  person  of  an  objector,  "that  there  is 
next  to  nothing,  on  the  surface  of  scripture,  about  them 
(these  church  doctrines)  and  very  litde,  even  under  the 
surface,  of  a  satisfactory  character." — "  In  short,  is  not, 
it  may  be  asked,  the  state  of  the  evidence  for  all  these 
doctrines  just  this — a  few  striking  texts,  at  most,  scat- 
tered up  and  down  the  inspired  volume;  or  one  or  two 
particular  passages,  of  one  particular  epistle,  or  a  num- 
ber of  texts,  which  may  mean,  but  need  not  mean,  what 
they  are  said  by  churchmen  to  mean,  which  say  some- 
thing looking  like  what  is  needed,  but  with  very  little 
strength  and  point,  inadequately  aiid  unsatisfactorily?" 
And  again,  the  same  objection  is  otherwise  stated. — 
"Now,  when  we  turn  to  scripture,  we  see  much  indeed 
of  those  gifts  (spiritual)  we  read  much  of  what  Christ 
has  done/o?'  us,  by  atoning  for  our  sins,  and  much  of 
what  he  does  in  us,  that  is,  much  about  holiness,  faith, 
peace,  love,  joy,  hope,  and  obedience;  but  of.  those  in- 
termediate portions  of  the  revelation,  coming  between 
him  and  us,  of  which  the  church  speaks,  we  read  very 
little."— p.  50. 

After  having  thus,  and  more  at  length,  admitted  the  dif- 
ficulty, the  writer  goes  on,  with  much  address,  and  let  it 
be  confessed,  with  some  solid  reason,  so  far,  to  show  that^ 
although  so  slenderly  attested,  and  so  sligluly  alluded 
to  in  scripture,  these  doctrines  may  nevertheless,  like 
other  principles,  universally  received  among  orthodox 
Christians,  have  actually  constituted  a  part,  and  even  an 
essential  part,  of  apostolic  Christianity,  and  that,  whe- 
ther we  find  them  in  scripture,  or  elsewhere,  they  may 
reasonably  claim  our  reverential  regard. 

Let  ail  this  conditional  reasoning,  and  the  ingenious 


332  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

illustrations  attending  it,  be  admitted  as  satisfactory,  and 
let  it  (for  a  moment)  be  granted  that  the  opinions  of  the 
Oxford  Tract  writers  concerning  "  Baptism,  the  Lord's 
Supper,  Church  Union,  Ministerial  Power,  Apostolical 
Succession,  Absolution,  and  other  rites  and  ceremonies," 
are  sound;  that  is  to  say,  that  these  doctrines  and  prac- 
tices are  either  somewhere  contained  in,  or  are  virtually 
conveyed  by,  the  New  Testament,  although  not  thence 
to  be  gathered  by  any  convincing  method  of  proof;  or, 
that  they  may  be  gailiered  from  history.  Be  it  so;  that 
is  to  say,  that,  while  the  apostles  insist  upon  faith,  hope, 
love,  joy,  peace,  obedience,  and  the  like,  they  also  taught 
and  established,  in  the  churches,  the  "  church  principles- 
and  practices,"  such  as  we  find  them  every  where  in  the 
records  of  ancient  Christianity. 

For  reasons  which  may  lie  beyond  our  ken,  it  may 
have  pleased  God  to  convey  the  spiritual  and  moral  ele- 
ments of  religion  through  the  medium  of  explicit  written 
statements;  while  the  ritual  and  ecclesiastical  elements 
of  the  same  great  and  harmonious  scheme  were  to  reach 
us  more  circuitously,  or  more  ambiguously.  If  this  were 
granted  to  be  the  fact,  (which  is  much  more  than  we 
grant,)  yet  could  we  go  on  to  believe  tliat  the  relative 
position,  or,  as  we  may  say,  the  perspective  of  objects,— 
the  spiritual,  the  moral,  the  ritual,  the  ecclesiastical, — 
was,  with  the  divine  sanction,  and  in  accordance  with 
the  divine  will,  to  be  distorted,  or  inverted,  when  the 
apostolic  scheme  came  into  the  iiands  of  the  next  gene- 
ration? Grant  it,  that  more  belonged  to  apostolic  Chris- 
tianity than  may  certainly  or  clearly  be  gathered  from 
the  apostolic  writings;  but  yet,  was  not  this  after-portion 
to  fall  into  its  place,  in  obedience  to  the  general  law 
of  the  system,  as  we  may  gather  that  law  from  the  style. 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  333 

temper,  and  very  words,  and  special  decisions,  of  the 
apostles?  Was  it  intended  that  the  individual  Christian 
was,  as  soon  as  the  apostles  left  the  world,  to  shift  his 
position,  and  to  betake  himself  to  a  point  of  view  whence 
every  thing,  spiritual,  moral,  ritual,  and  ecclesiastical, 
would  appear  under  a  totally  different  aspect,  and  present 
to  the  eye  a  side  that  had  not  been  seen  before;  and  that 
these  objects,  severally,  should  subtend,  on  the  field  of 
vision,  exchanged  magnitudes — the  great  seeming  small, 
and  the  small  great?     Is  this  to  be  believed? 

But  it  must  be  believed,  if  we  are  to  take  the  several 
articles  of  what  is  called  "church  doctrine  "  in  the  order, 
and  under  the  perspective,  in  which  we  find  them,  where 
only  we  do  find  them  at  cdl,  namely,  in  the  extant  remains 
of  the  early  church.  If  we  give  up  these  records,  we 
give  up  those  superadded  practices  and  principles,  or 
"  church  doctrines;"  for  we  have  no  other  sufficient  war- 
rant for  paying  them  any  regard.  But,  if  we  adhere  to 
these  records,  then  on  what  principle  do  we  submit  to 
iho  rites  and  notions  thence  derived,  as  of  apostolic  au- 
thority, and  yet  reject  the  relative  position  therein  as- 
signed to  them?  Whence  do  we  draw  our  authority  for 
making  this  distinction,  and  for  acting  upon  the  differ- 
ence, between  the  doctrines  or  practices  tliemselves,  and 
the  location  of  them?  If  tlie  bishops  of  the  early  church 
are  to  teach  us  "  the  way  of  the  Lord  more  perfectly  " 
than  we  can  learn  it  from  the  apostles  themselves,  then, 
on  what  ground  do  we  call  in  question  their  right  to  hold 
the  entire  scheme  of  religion  up  to  our  view,  in  its  just 
persj)ective?  I  do  not  understand  how  we  can  yield 
ourselves  to  this  extra-apostolic  authority,  just  in  regard 
to  the  articles  of  Christian  belief  and  worship;  and  then 
withdraw  ourselves  from  it,  in  regard  to  the  order  iii 
which  they  are  to  follow  one  the  other, 
29 


334  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

I  assume  it,  tlicn,  as  certain,  that,  in  taking  what  are 
called  the  "church  doctrines"  from  the  early  and  Nicene 
church  writers,  we  are  bound  to  receive  them  not  insu- 
lated, or  in  fragments;  but  as  ice  there  find  them.  But, 
if  so,  then  we,  that  is  to  say,  those  who  yield  themselves 
to  this  guidance,  are  placed  in  a  predicament  as  serious 
as  any  that  can  be  imagined,  for  we  are  not  merely  called 
upon  to  accept,  as  of  divine  authority,  very  much  which 
the  inspired  writers  barely  glance  at;  but  to  regard  those 
things  as  foremost  which,  in  the  inspired  writings,  even 
if  they  appear  at  all,  and  which  is  confessed  to  be 
doubtful,  are  placed  hindermost.  To  make  so  many 
additions  to  our  faith,  worship,  and  practice,  is  some- 
thing; but  it  yet  is  nothing  compared  with  the  ominous 
operation  of  inverting  the  entire  order  of  things — spiri- 
tual, moral,  ritual,  and  ecclesiastical.  What  religious 
mind  will  not  hesitate  and  tremble  when  invited  to  go 
to  such  a  length  as  this? 

No  fact  in  the  history  of  religion,  or  philosopliy,  ob- 
trudes itself  more  forcibly,  or  more  frequently,  upon  our 
notice,  than  that  of  the  utter  contrast  between  the  apos- 
tolic writings  and  the  writings  of  the  fathers,  especially 
of  the  Nicene  fathers,  (who  are  now  to  be  our  masters,) 
in  this  particular,  namely,  the  relative  position  of  the 
diverse  elements  of  religion.  I  can  hardly  believe  that 
any  will  be  so  bold  as  roundly  to  deny,  or  as  in  any  im- 
portant sense  to  qualify,  the  statement  of  this  fact.  As- 
suredly none:  not  the  Oxford  Tract  writers,  for  tJicy 
have  confessed  the  very  contrary;  none  will  dare  to  say 
that  the  apostles  were  mainly  intent  upon  the  enhance- 
ment and  glorification  of  the  riles,  forms,  dignities,  and 
exterior  apparatus  of  Christianity.  If  any  will  say  this, 
I  have  no  reply  to  make  to  them.  Nor  can  I  suppose 
that  any,  except  a  very  few,  who,  by  long  and  fond  con- 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  335 

verse  with  antiquity,  have  lost  the  vigour  of  their  moral 
and  intellectual  perceptions,  will  deny  that  the  fathers, 
and  the  Nicene  fathers  especially,  look  at  the  compo- 
nents of  their  Christianity  from  an  opposite  point.  They 
do  not,  as  I  have  stated  twenty  times,  deny,  or  altogether 
forget,  that  which  is  spiritual  in  religion;  but  they  place 
foremost,  and  they  urgently  direct,  the  minds  of  the 
people  towards  that  which  is  visible,  ritual,  and  ecclesi- 
astical. It  is  on  these  matters  that  their  seriousness  and 
fervour  are  employed;  it  is,  while  upholding  these,  that 
they  kindle  and  spend  their  force.  When  do  they  lavish 
rhetoric?  in  glorifying  the  Saviour  of  sinners,  and  in  re- 
commending the  gospel? — seldom;  some  of  them  never. 
But  they  can,  one  and  all,  glow,  and  burn,  and  roll 
thunders,  and  dart  their  sparks,  when  the  mysteries  and 
powers  of  the  church  are  in  question! 

An  illustration  in  harmony  with  the  subject  offers  it- 
self among  the  stores  of  graphic  ecclesiastical  antiquity, 
where  one  may  find  the  delineation  of  this  or  that  sacred 
edifice,  fairly  depicted  in  bold  lines,  and  strong  colours; 
embossed,  too,  and  palpable,  in  its  glittering  decorations. 
Then  there  are  about  it,  and  about  it,  flimsy,  faint-co- 
loured cherubs,  and  seraphs,  hovering  in  the  clouds,  and 
chirping  anthems;  and,  altogether,  making  a  seemly  bor- 
der to  the  temple  of  St.  Peter,  or  St.  Mark.  Now, 
much  like  this  is  the  view  of  Christianity  presented  to 
us  in  the  patristic  records — there  is  the  church,  boldly 
drawn,  and  bodily  laid  upon  the  parchment,  so  as  that 
one  may  feel  its  outlines,  as  well  as  look  at  it;  and  this 
church  is  mad-e  awful  to  the  mind  of  the  spectator  by  its 
hiding  the  "  terrific  mysteries,"  while  around  it,  and 
over  it,  flutter  the  airy  figures  of  spiritual  piety — faith, 
hope,  charity,  joy,  peace,  and  the  like;  and,  to  render 
justice  to  the  system,  the  moral  virtues — temperance, 


336  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

self-denia],  cliarity,  (almsgiving-,)  are  seen,  in  substan- 
tial quality,  moving  in  and  out  of  the  building,  as  living 
personages.  Yet,  such  is  the  general  arrangement  of 
objects  in  the  piece — such  the  grouping  and  the  distri- 
bution of  light  and  shade.  As  to  the  crowd  around,  if 
the  few  and  the  better  taught  kept  their  eye  fixed  upon 
spiritual  objects,  the  many  could  do  nothing  else  but  look 
directly  toward  that  which,  in  a  practical  sense,  was 
alone  of  any  consequence  to  them.  'J'hey  looked  to  tiie 
sacraments,  which  tliey  were  solemnly  assured  conveyed 
infallibly,  and  entire,  tiie  benefit  they  were  in  search  of, 
namely,  exemption  from  future  peril.  Nay,  so  direct  is 
the  tendency  of  perverted  human  nature  toward  what- 
ever is  visible  and  formal  in  religion,  that,  with  the  mass 
of  men,  it  was  not  so  much  the  sacrament, — the  whole 
religious  riie, — which  fixed  tiieir  attention,  as  the  mere 
material,  or  instruments  of  the  sacraments:  the  glassy 
surface  of  the  baptismal  pool,  as  yet  unruffled,  and  re- 
flecting the  marbled  magnificence  of  the  church,  seemed 
the  very  mirror  of  eternity,  and,  as  if,  while  intently 
gazing  upon  it,  the  glories  of  heaven  might  be  dimly 
descried  beneath.  An  analogous  instance,  and  lunuireds 
of  the  like  kind  might  be  adduced,  I  have  already  re- 
ferred to;  1  mean  that  of  the  brother  of  Ambrose,  who 
had  been  taught  to  attach  such  importance  to  the  mere 
eucharislic  wafer,  as  to  think  that,  tied  about  his  neck, 
it  would  serve  him  better  than  the  stoutest  of  the  ship's 
timbers,  in  making  his  way  to  land,  tlirough  the  break- 
ers! 

Now,  when  we  have  instances  of  this  sort  before  us, 
the  question  is  not,  (the  immediate  question,)  whether 
the  notions  of  the  early  church  concerning  the  sacra- 
ments, and  the  wonder-working  efllcacy  of  the  bread, 
the  wine,  the  water,  the  oil,  the  salt,  the  spittle,  were 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  337 

true  or  false;  but  whether,  in  a  broad  and  practical  sense, 
the  effect  of  these  notions  upon  the  mass  of  the  people, 
nay,  upon  the  best-trained  minds,  (such,  for  instance,  as 
Satyrus,)  was  not  to  invert  the  order  in  which  the  spiri- 
tual, the  moral,  the  ritual,  the  ecclesiastical  elements  of 
Christianity,  were  to  be  viewed,  as  compared  with  the 
order  in  which  they  seem  to  have  stood  in  the  view  of 
the  apostles?  I  am  content  that  all  should  turn  upon  a 
fair  reply  to  this  question. 

Say,  that  catholic  teaching,  I  mean  that  of  the  Nicene 
fathers,  regarding  the  sacraments,  and  other  "church 
doctrines,"  is  what  we  ought  to  adopt  and  follow.  But 
now  I  would  gladly  put  the  plain  question — an  histori- 
cal, not  a  theological  question,  to  any  one,  competently 
informed,  and  to  any  one,  who  has  too  much  of  the  feel- 
ings of  a  gentleman  to  resort  to  evasions,  and  too  much 
of  the  feelings  of  a  Cliristian  to  put  a  false  colour  or 
varnish  upon  facts  touching  religious  principles,  and  too 
much  of  the  feelings  of  a  minister,  or  public  person,  to 
compromise,  in  any  manner,  his  professional  character- 
to  such  a  one,  I  would  be  glad  to  put  the  question — 
Whether,  so  far  as  we  can  judge  by  their  writings,  the 
apostles,  and  the  Nicene  fathers,  and  their  hearers,  re- 
spectively, were  accustomed  to  look  at  the  spiritual,  and 
the  ritual,  elements  of  Christianity  from  one  and  the 
same  point  of  view,  or  not  rather  from  opposite  points  of 
view?  Who  will  give  me  such  a  reply  to  this  question 
as  shall  not  leave  him  open  to  a  speedy  refutation? 

Shall  the  answer  to  such  a  question  be  staked  upon  a 
full  exhibition  of  the  style  and  doctrine  of  Ambrose, 
concerning  the  sacraments;  or  shall  we  introduce  him, 
passionately  pleading  with  God  for  the  soul  of  Valen- 
tinian,  who  had  died  uninitiated,  unregenerate,  unjusti- 
29* 


338  MEANS  OF   ESTIMATING  THE 

fied,  that  is — unbaptized: — Solve,  igitur,  Pater  Sancte, 
munus  servo  tiio!  Upon  the  popular  mind,  what  effect 
could  the  ambiguous,  anxious  intercession  of  their  trem- 
bling bishop,  when  thus  supplicating  mercy  for  the  soul 
of  the  uninitiated  '*  servant  of  God,"  have  had,  but  that 
of  putting  the  ritual  in  forefront  of  the  spiritual  element 
of  religion?  In  conformity  with  the  same  notion,  the 
church,  from  an  early  time,  held  that  the  blood  of  mar- 
tyrdom, although  nothing  else  could,  might  be  held,  in 
the  case  of  a  catechumen,  to  supply  to  the  soul  the  want 
of  the  water  of  baptism. 

So  the  custom,  general  as  it  became,  of  deferring  bap- 
tism to  the  last  hour,  a  custom  so  utterly  opposed  lo  the 
practice  of  the  apostolic  age,  whence  did  it  arise,  but 
from  the  doctrine  of  the  church  at  the  time;  for  the  peo- 
ple, estimating,  if  w-e  may  so  speak,  their  chances  of 
heaven,  all  lliings  considered,  concluded,  and  not  unrea- 
sonably, that,  allhougli,  in  doing  so,  tiiey  incurred  the 
fearful  risk  of  meeting  death  suddenly,  or  where  the 
"regenerating  water"  could  not  be  obtained,  yet,  inas- 
much as  a  death-bed  initiation,  if  it  could  but  be  had, 
would  cover  all  defects,  and  moreover,  as  sin  after  bap- 
tism could  be  expiated,  if  at  all,  only  in  the  precarious 
and  painful  methods  of  penance,  wiiich  expiatory  pro- 
cess itself  might  be  cut  short  by  death,  leaving  no  re- 
medy whatever;  the  safer  course,  although  a  perilous 
one,  was  to  hold  in  reserve,  to  the  last,  and  trusting  to 
good  fortune,  that  one  remedy,  concerning  the  efficacy 
of  which  no  doubt  could  be  entertained.  This  course, 
moreover,  had  a  farther  recommendation,  incidentally  at- 
tached to  it,  namely,  that  with  the  sovereign  remedy 
still  untouched,  and  at  hand,  a  man  might,  mean  time, 
live  as  he  pleased — only  let  him  be  so  fortunate,  at  the 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  339 

last,  as  to  have  a  kind  priest  within  call,  and  all  would 
be  right!  In  vain  the  great  preachers  of  the  Nicene  age 
spent  their  eloquence  in  denouncing  lliis  impiety.  Men 
coolly  made  their  own  calculations,  and  chose  to  abide 
by  what  they  felt  to  be  their  better  chance. 

It  would  be  of  no  avail,  in  this  case,  to  make  a  loose 
admission  in  regard  to  the  Nicene  divines,  and  to  say — 
"  Yes,  we  grant  tliat  they  often  express  themselves  un- 
guardedly, or  indulge  in  the  language  of  exaggeration; 
or,  while  insisting  upon  some  one  point,  forget  too  much 
its  relative  importance — we  grant  tliis."  Such  an  apo- 
logy will  not  cover  what  it  is  stretched  over.  The 
question  is  not  concerning  a  little  more  or  a  little  lens; 
or  concerning  the  proprieties  of  languaire,  but  plainly 
concerning  ihe  relative  position,  as  apprehended  by  the 
people  at  large,  of  the  spiritual  and  the  ritual  parts  of 
Christianity;  and  it  is  here  affirmed  that  whereas,  in  the 
apostolic  writings,  the  spiritual  stands  foremost,  and  the 
ritual  liindermost  (where  it  appears  at  all)  in  the  Nicene 
writings,  on  the  contrary,  whatever  may  be  said  about 
the  spiritual,  the  ritual  is  so  placed  as  to  fix  upon  itself 
the  most  intense,  if  not  the  exclusive  regards  of  the 
people.  And  that  this  was  the  actual  effect  of  this  re- 
versed order,  is  attested  by  the  simple  fact  that  the  peo- 
ple did  so  interpret  the  cliurch  docirine,  as  bearing  upon 
their  personal  conduct;  the  more  religious  class  taking 
the  steep,  but  certain  road  to  heaven,  through  virginity, 
and  the  ascetic  discipline;  while  the  many — the  less  de- 
vout, in  all  degrees,  down  to  the  gross  and  sensual,  either 
secured  their  salvation  within  the  church,  availing  them- 
selves carefully  of  all  its  customary  remedies,  or  took  a 
lodging  just  under  the  eaves  of  it;  and,  as  they  hoped, 
within  reach  of  the  one  great  remedy,  when  the  worst 
should  come. 


340  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

That  is  to  say,  after  we  have  set  off  from  the  Nicene 
system,  the  super-human  institute  of  celibacy,  which 
could  avail  for  only  a  few,  then,  and  for  the  many,  this 
system  was  precisely  what  popery  has  always  been — a 

RELIGION  OF    SACRAMENTS. 

To  return  then  for  a  moment  to  the  argument  of  the 
Oxford  Tract  writer,  (No.  85,)  if  we  were  to  grant  that 
apostolic  Clirislianity,  as  conveyed  in,  and  out  of  the 
New  Testament,  is  also  a  religion  of  sacraments,  we 
should  still  have  made  no  progress  toward  the  desired 
point,  that  of  reconciling  ourselves  to  the  religion  of  the 
Nicene  age,  unless  we  could  bring  ourselves  to  affirm 
and  believe  also,  that  apo^itolic  Christianity  is  a  religion 
of  sacraments  foremost,  and  of  spiritual  principles  hinder- 
most! 

It  may  be  asked  by  some — "  V/hy  may  we  not  have 
a  religion  of  sacraments — of  church  mysteries,  and 
church  power,  and  yet,  at  the  same  time,  give  due  pro- 
minence to  the  spiritual  and  moral  realities  of  the  gos- 
pel? Why  may  we  not  keep  the  spiritual  and  the  ritual 
fairly  abreast  one  of  the  other?"  Such  a  question  ad- 
mits of  three  distinct  and  categorical  answers;  as  First — 
The  original  constitution  of  the  human  mind  forbids  the 
attempt  so  to  hold  elements  in  equipoise,  the  very  na- 
ture of  which  is  not  to  occupy  one  and  the  same  level. 
Secondly,  the  actual  condition  of  huma!i  nature,  as  per- 
versely disposed  always  to  substitute  the  ritual  for  the 
spiritual  in  religion,  renders  any  such  attempt  to  place 
the  two  evenly  before  the  mind,  or  otherwise  tlian  as 
the  scriptures  place  them,  in  the  last  degree,  unwise, 
nay,  mischievous.  Thirdly,  God  forbids  this  endeavour, 
bringing  as  it  does  his  truth  upon  the  very  stage  which 
all  false  religions  have  occupied. 


QUALITY  OF  NICEXE  THEOLOGY.  341 

if  we  appeal  to  history,  in  attestation  of  tliese  three 
answers  to  the  question  pat,  the  whole  course  of  it  comes 
to  our  aid  in  one  crowded  mass — all  contirming  each, 
with  undivided  force. — It  confirms  the  first  and  the  se- 
cond, together,  by  showing  that,  as  well  among  highly 
civilized  communities,  as  among  the  rudest,  where  the 
ritual  element  of  religion  has  been  thrown  forwards,  or 
put  out  of  its  place,  in  relation  to  the  spiritual,  the  two 
have  never,  actually,  rested  for  a  moment,  as  if  in  equi- 
poise; but,  on  the  contrary,  there  has  been  an  accele- 
rated movement,  until  the  spiritual  had  entirely  subsided, 
or  retired,  leaving  nothing  but  the  merest  formality,  and 
the  grossest  superstition.  The  third  is  confirmed  by  all 
those  instan.ces  in  which  it  has  become  manifest,  even 
to  the  irreligious,  that  an  influence  holier  and  mightier 
than  that  which  man  can  originate,  has  been  at  work 
within  the  church;  for  in  every  such  case,  the  two  ele- 
ments have  instantly,  and  as  if  by  a  natural  gravitation, 
resumed  their  due  places — that  is  to  say,  they  have  gone 
into  the  relative  position  which  manifestly  they  occu- 
pied in  the  apostolic  church — the  spiritual  and  the  moral 
foremost,  and  uppermost;  and  the  ritual,  not  excluded, 
but  held  in  its  subordination.  Moreover,  the  first  symp- 
tom of  decay  and  decline,  has  ever  been — a  revival  of 
the  ritual  part  of  religion,  as  a  mass  of  solemn  forma- 
lism, and  of  impious  mummeries: — the  Ichabod  of  the 
church  has  ever  borne  this  very  interpretation. 

But  there  is  another,  and  perhaps  a  more  conclusive, 
or  a  more  affecting  confirmation  of  the  same  great  prin- 
ciple, afforded  by  those  signal,  single  instances,  in  which 
eminent  and  sincerely  religious  men  have  laboured,  and 
laboured  in  vain,  from  the  commenceuient  to  tlie  end  of 
their  public  course,  to  hold  the  two  elements  of  Chris- 
itianity,  the  spiritual  and  the  ritual,  in  equipoise.     None 


342  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

have  spent  their  strength,  in  this  endeavour,  under  more 
advantageous  circumstances  than  did  the  illustrious  John 
Chrysostom.  Nor  is  tliere  any  one  of  the  Nicene  fa- 
thers to  whom  an  appeal,  of  this  sort,  might  be  made 
v/ith  the  hope  of  its  being  more  satisfactory,  to  all  par- 
ties, or  more  exempt  from  exceptions  of  every  kind; 
none  surpassed  him  altogether  in  acquaintance  with  the 
scriptures,  in  breadth  and  richness  of  intellect,  in  fer- 
vour of  piety,  vigour  of  character,  eloquence,  and  influ- 
ence. To  name  any  one  of  his  disiinguished  contem- 
poraries, of  the  Greek  church,  rather  than  himself, 
would  seem  to  be  an  intentional  disparagement  of  the 
sacramental  cause.  To  name  Augustine,  would  not  be 
conclusive,  inasmuch  as  his  reputation,  as  a  theological 
authority,  is  questioned  in  this  case,  and  is  ambiguous. 
What  could  an  opponent  gain  by  putting  in  the  place  of 
the  archbishop  of  Constantinople,  either  the  bishop  of 
Milan,  or  the  crabbed  monk  of  Bethlehem,  or  the  bishop 
of  Cscsarea,  or  Nazianzen,  or  Nyssen?  and  how  much 
would  they  put  in  peril,  by  any  such  substitution? 

Now,  if  we  take  this  great  divine  as  our  conclusive 
instance,  it  will  appear  (or  it  must  be  granted  by  those 
who  are  at  all  familiar  with  his  writings,)  that  the  whole 
of  liis  ecclesiasiical  course  was  a  struggle,  an  agony,  in- 
cited by  tlie  vehement  endeavour  to  keep,  in  even  equi- 
poise, the  spiritual  and  the  ritual  elements  of  religion. 
How  does  he  toil  and  pant  in  this  bootless  task!  Per- 
sonally, too  much  alive  to  the  spiritual  and  vital  reality 
of  the  Christian  scheme  to  be  quietly  willing,  like  most 
of  his  contemporaries,  to  let  it  subside,  and  totally  dis- 
appear, and  yet  far  too  deeply  imbued  with,  at  once,  the 
gnostic  and  the  Brahminical  feeling,  and  too  intimately 
compromised,  as  a  public  person,  with  the  "  church  doc- 
trines" of  the  limes,  he  could  never  rest,  as  did  others; 


QUALITV  OF  THE  NICEXE  THEOLOGY.  343 

but  was  ever  tossing  from  side  to  side,  like  one  borne 
helplessly  on  by  an  impetuous  tide,  through  a  narrow  and 
\vinding  Hellespont: — now  thrown  upon  the  steep  Asi- 
atic shore,  and  now,  as  by  a  sudden  eddy,  carried  ri^ht 
athwart  the  current,  toward  the  European  shallows. 
Few  great  writers  offer  so  little  repose  as  Chrysostom; 
few  present  contrasts  so  violent;  and  they  are  contrasts 
of  apparent  intention,  as  if  his  own  guiding  motive — his 
cynosure,  had  been  a  binary  star,  shedding  contrary  In- 
fluences upon  his  course:  and  so  it  was  in  fact.  Scarcely 
is  there  a  homily  all  of  a  piece,  hardly  are  there  two 
consecutive  passages  that  can  be  read  without  a  surprise, 
amounting  to  a  painful  perplexity,  until  the  secret  of  all 
this  perpetual  contrariety  is  understood;  and  then  it  be- 
comes manifest  enough  that,  within  the  writer's  soul,  a 
spiritual  and  substantial  Christianity,  which  should  have 
been  uppermost,  w^as  ever  wrestling  with  church  doc- 
trines, and  gnostic  sentiments,  which  luoiild  be  upper- 
most. From  no  one  of  the  Nicene  fathers  might  extracts 
be  made  so  nearly  satisfactory  to  a  protestant  ear;  from 
no  one  may  there  be  gatliered  wilder  extravagances, 
such  as  the  papist  makes  his  boast  of;  and  from  no  divine 
of  any  age  or  communion,  could  such  instances  be  ad- 
duced of  the  two  kinds  in  intimate  combination. 

Nevertheless  the  convulsive  effort  spent  itself  in  vain: — 
the  laws  of  human  nature,  and  its  perversity,  and,  not 
less,  tlie  eternal  constitutions  of  heaven  prevailed,  and 
severally  took  their  proper  effect.  Chrysostom  left 
Nicene  Christianity  what  he  found  it — a  religion  of 
asceticism,  and  of  sacraments,  and  of  high  *' church 
principles."  And  if  we  want  proof  of  this,  we  may 
either  look  to  the  actual  and  well-known  condition  of 
the  Greek  church,  in  the  next  age;  or,  into  his  own 
writings,  and  especially  into   those   parts  of  them  in 


344  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 


which,  from  the  nature  of  the  subject,  and  the  occasiorr^ 
the  real  rehiiive  position  of  the  superior,  and  the  infe- 
rior elements  of  religion,  is  conspicuously  placed  before 
us.  To  such  an  instance  1  will  now  appeal,  and  I  do 
so  with  the  confidence  that  it  ought  to  be  accepted  as 
satisfactory  and  conclusive,  and  that  it  will  be  so  accept- 
ed by  the  candid  inquirer. 

What  is  Christian  repentance?  is  it  a  refined  species 
Oi"  natural  remorse?  is  it,  as  compared  with  philosophical 
reform,  a  better  omened  endeavour  of  the  moral  nature, 
to  purify  itself,  and  set  out  anew  on  the  path  of  virtue? 
or  is  it  not  rather  a  deep  and  lasting  coniniolion  of  the 
alTeclions,  the  moral  sentiments,  originated  from  above, 
and  having  for  its  impulse,  and  its  centre,  those  facts 
and  principles  which  are  peculiar  to  the  gospel?  1  as- 
sume that  this  is  the  true  description,  or,  at  least,  the 
truer  of  the  two:  and  then  it  will  follow  that,  if  a  well- 
inl''ormed  and  devout  writer,  and  a  leader  of  opinion,  is 
found  treating  a  subject  such  as  this,  which  may  be 
called  the  preliminary  of  piety,  and  which  touches  inti- 
mately and  directly  the  rudiments  of  Christianity — if 
such  a  writer  shall  be  found  so  treating  this  subject,  as 
tliat  the  practical  result,  upon  the  mass  of  minds,  shall 
be  to  favour  their  own  perverse  propensity  to  addict 
themselves  to  the  forms  and  the  austerities  of  religion, 
and  to  forget  its  higher  elements,  then,  and  in  such  an 
instance,  we  are  clearly  justified  in  affirming  that  the 
Christianity  of  the  age  had  slid  from  its  original  founda- 
tions, and  had  become  effectively  corrupt. 

Let  us  then  give  more  than  a  moment's  attention  to 
Chrvsostom's  treatise  on  Repentance  (tom.  ii.  pp.  'S'Z8 — 
U4)—?i  careful  composition,  comprised  in  nine  homi- 
lies, and  occupying  a  space  equivalent  to  the  tract  now 
in  the  reader's  hand.     We  may  therefore  well  look  into 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  345 

it  with  the  expectation  of  finding  there  a  fair  sample  of 
the  writer's  principles,  and  mode  of  teaching.  In  ad- 
vancing upon  this  ground  I  especially  challenge  the 
reader's  attention  ^to  the  fact,  that  those  passages  which 
I  may  cite,  or  refer  to — and  with  pleasure,  as  of  a  re- 
deeming quality,  that  is  to  say,  evangelical  and  ani- 
mating, and  nearly  allied  to  our  protestant  notions,  are 
peculiarly  pertinent  to  my  immediate  purpose,  inasmuch 
as  they  show  that  the  sacramental  principles,  and  the 
"  church  doctrines,"  which,  at  the  same  time,  the 
preacher  laboured  so  strenuously  to  maintain,  possessed, 
in  this  instance,  all  the  advantage  they  could  derive  from 
their  being  associated  with  the  better  and  purer  elements 
of  Christianity.  It  is  not  as  if  I  were  here  adducing 
some  one  of  the  blind  and  florid  orators  of  the  same  ao-e, 
whose  enormities  of  superstition  are  barely,  or  not  at 
all  relieved,  by  any  indications  of  genuine  pious  feeling. 
Who  is  there  that  shall  come  after  Chrysostom,  and  hope 
to  give  the  ritual  principle  a  better  chance  than  he  gave 
it,  of  recommending  itself  to  our  approval?  Moreover, 
1  must  ask  the  reader  to  keep  in  view  the  striking  indi- 
cations he  will  m.eet  with,  as  we  go  on,  of  the  connex- 
ion of  the  celibate  with  Chrysostom's  theological  sys- 
tem, of  which,  in  fact,  it  was  the  master-principle. 

To  preclude  any  objection,  I  will  premise  a  note  of 
the  learned  editor,  concerning  the  last  three  homilies. 
"  The  seventh,  eighth,  and  ninth  homilies,  do  not  offer 
the  same  indications  of  genuineness  (as  the  others.)  The 
style  is  inferior  to  that  of  Chrysostom,  in  elegance;  and 
therefore  it  is  not  without  some  scruple,  that  we  leave 
them  standing  among  his  undoubted  writings;  and  yet 
we  have  not  thought  it  proper  to  set  them  aside,  espe- 
cially considering  (as  we  have  elsewhere  stated)  that  our 
^v»'y  doctor  is  not  always  himself,  as  it  regards  language 
30 


34G  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

and  manner:  other  homilies  indeed  we  have  in  liand,  on 
the  same  subject,  which,  as  being  maniTestly  spurious, 
we  have  tlirown  into  the  appendix." 

The  homilies  on  Repentance  were  pronounced  on  suc- 
cessive Sundays  to  his  flock,  (at  Anlioch)  after  an  ab- 
sence in  the  country,  for  the  recovery  of  his  health, 
(luring  which,  as  he  declares,  their  welfare,  and  them- 
selves, were  ever  present  to  his  mind.  They  express, 
therefore,  not  the  liurried  emotions  of  an  overburdened 
public  course,  but  the  calm  and  refreshed  sentiments  that 
return  upon  a  well  ordered  mind,  in  a  season  of  seclusion 
—-seclusion  amidst  the  scenes  of  nature;  and  when  the 
perturbations  of  the  soul,  and  its  ambition,  have  been 
stilled  by  the  languors  of  disease.  Now  certainly  we 
shall  find  the  Christian  preacher  himself. 

'i'he  lirst  of  these  homilies  is  occupied  chiefly  with 
illustrations  of  the  opposite  dangers  of  desperation,  or 
despoiidency,  and  of  inertness,  or  indifTerence,  in  reli- 
gion. Among  these  illustrations,  and  for  the  purpose 
of  checking  despondency,  (as  promoted  by  the  Novatian 
doctrine)  he  adduces  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son, 
proving,  as  it  does,  that  repentance  is  possible,  and  the 
remission  of  sins  attainable,  after  baptism — a  point  else- 
where held  to  be  very  doubtful.  "The  prodigal  son 
answers,"  says  Chrysostom,  "to  those  who  fall  after 
baptism:  he  does  so,  inasmuch  as  he  is  called  a  son;  for 
none  arc  sons  apart  from  baptism,  with  whicli  are  con- 
nected all  the  benefits  of  heirship,  and  a  community  of 
interests  with  the  family.  He  is  called  moreover  the 
brother  of  him  who  was  approved;  but  there  is  no  fra- 
ternity (in  the  church)  without  the  spiritual  regeneration" 
(baptism.)  The  second  homily  opens  in  a  manner  very 
characteiistic  of  the  preacher's  style.  "Last  Sunday 
did  ye  witness  a  light  and  a  victory?  the  fight  indeed  of 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  347 

the  devil,  and  the  victory  of  Christ?  Have  ye  seen  the 
commendation  of  repentance,  and  the  wound  of  the 
devil,  and  liow  ill  he  bore  it,  and  how  he  trembled  and 
shuddered?  Wherefore  didst  tliou  fear,  O  devil,  while 
repentance  was  commended?  why  groan?  why  shudder? 
Properly  enough,  says  he,  do  I  groan,  and  trouble  my- 
self, for  this  same  repentance  snatches  from  me  my 
choicest  treasures." 

"  — The  first  course  or  path  of  repentance  is  confes- 
sion: Come  to  church,  and  acknowledge  your  sin:  come, 
if  you  are  a  sinner,  that  you  may  profess  repentance: 
come,  if  you  are  one  of  the  just,  that  you  fall  not  from 
your  righteousness."  Some  indeed  would  lay  the  foun- 
dation of  (Christian)  repentance  a  little  lower,  and  speak, 
first  of  all,  of  that  conviction  of  guilt,  impolency,  and 
danger,  which  the  Spirit  infuses,  and  which  takes  its 
force  from  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement.  Not  so 
the  divine  before  us,  who  introduces  no  topic  of  this 
sort.  "Sinner!  be  beforehand  with  the  devil — put  him 
out  of  his  office,  which  is  diat  of  accuser.  Enter  the 
«hurch,  and  say  to  God — I  have  sinned.  Nothing  else 
do  I  ask  of  thee;  .  .  .  acknowledge  sin,  that  thou  mayest 
loosen  sin!"     Theu  follow  various  examples  in  point. 

But  there  is  a  second  means  of  repentance,  "  and 
what  may  that  be?  Weeping  for  sin.  Hast  thou  sinned? 
Weep,  and  thou  shalt  absolve  sin.  Is  this  a  great  mat- 
ter? Nothing  more  do  I  require  of  thee,  than  this — to 
weep  for  sin."  In  confirmation  of  which  doctrine  the 
instances  are  adduced,  to  wit  Ahab,  and  the  Nineviles. 

There  is,  however,  a  third  means  of  repentance;  "  for 
I  have  mentioned  many,  that  the  way  of  salvation  may 
be  made  the  more  easy  to  thee:  and  what  is  that?  Hu- 
mility. Be  lowly  in  mind,  and  thou  hast  broken  the 
bonds  of  thy  sins."     The  proof  and  instance  we  hai^e 


348  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

ill  the  parable  of  the  pharisee  and  the  piihlican;  and  the 
wav  in  which  Chrysostom  treats  this  instance,  demands 
to  be  noticed.  The  pharisee,  through  his  arrogance  and 
uncharitableness,  retired  from  the  temple,  having  lost 
his  6i)i:ticfTvr>i,  whereas  the  publican,  by  his  humiliation, 
had  acquired  what  he  had  not  before.  But  here  we 
might  ask,  whether,  in  fact,  the  pharisee  had  any  genu- 
ine righteousness  to  lose?  let  this  however  pass,  while 
we  endeavour  to  ascertain,  from  what  follows,  our 
preaclier's  notion  of  this  same  humility,  which  is  one  of 
the  elements  of  true  repentance.  "  The  publican's  hu- 
mility, then,  after  all,  barely  deserved  the  name;  since 
his  confession — I  am  a  sinner,  was  nothing  more  than 
the  mere  truth;  but  humility  indeed  is  shown  when  one 
who  is  really  greats  humbles  himself.     Now  who  is  a 

sinner  if  a  publican  be  not  one? Wherefore  if 

even  this  publican,  sinner  as  he  was,  obtained  this  great 
boon,  justification,  upon  his  showing  a  humiliation, 
which  indeed  was  mere  truth,  how  much  rather  shall 
he  be  so  favoured,  who,  while  he  is  gy^psTOf,  a  proficient 
in  virtue,  nevertheless  humbles  himself?  ....  Where- 
fore, if  thou  confess  thy  sins,  and  humblest  thyself,  thou 
becomest  just.  But  wouldst  thou  learn  who  it  is  that  is 
truly  humble?  Look  at  Paul,  who  was  humble  indeed. 
Paul  the  teacher  of  the  wide  world — Paul  the  spiritual 
orator,  the  elect  vessel,  the  unbillowed  harbour,  the  un- 
shaken tower — Paul,  who,  little  as  he  was,  traversed  the 
world,  moving  from  land  to  land  as  if  winged;  look  at 
such  a  one,  esteeming  himself  so  little — unlearned,  al- 
though a  philosopher;  poor,  although  rich;  such  a  one, 
I  say,  humble  indeed,  who  engaged  in  innumerable 
toils,"  Slc.  Slc.  Then  follows  a  page  nearly,  of  that  sort 
of  adulatory  exaggeration,  lifting  Paul  to  the  pinnacle 
of  praise,  and  above  it,  which  so  often  oflends  the  ear  in 


QUALITY  OF  THE  MCENE  THEOLOGY.  349 

the  patristic  pulpit  oratory:  the  purport  of  the  whole  be- 
ing to  show,  by  the  comparison  between  the  publican  and 
the  apostle,  how  great  and  sure  must  be  the  "justifying 
efficacy"  of  humility,  if,  even  when  it  consisted  in  the 
simple  confession  of  a  naked  truth,  it  procured  this  boon, 
falling  far  short  as  it  did  of  the  transcendental  humilia- 
tion of  such  a  holy  doctor  and  illustrious  philosopher  as 
Paul! 

I  do  not  know  how  this  may  sound  in  other  ears;  but 
in  mine  it  sounds  ill;  and  it  seems  to  imply  a  sad  mis- 
understanding of  the  true  grounds  and  properties  of 
Christian  humility.  Not  very  unlike  is  it  to  what  one 
may  find  in  the  "  Ethics  "  of  a  famous  pagan,  much 
read  and  esteemed  in  certain  high  places;  but  altogether 
unlike  any  thing  found  in  the  New  Testament — unless 
it  be  the  portrait  of  the  pharisee  of  the  parable  and  of  his 
fellows.  Chrysostom  does  in  effect  put  the  feeling  of 
the — "God,  I  thank  tliee,  I  am  not  as  other  men,"  into 
the  lips  of  the  apostle,  who  surely,  from  the  moment 
that  the  light  shone  upon  him  in  llie  road  to  Damascus, 
had  renounced  every  such  notion  of  his  own  merits,  as 
well  as  of  the  merit  of  his  renunciation  of  merit. 

"  You  have  forgotten  every  word  I  said  to  you  last 
Sunday — the  beginning,  the  middle,  and  the  end.  Is  it 
not  so?  But  I  will  not  upbraid  you;  you  have  your 
families  to  mind,  your  homes  to  take  care  of,  your  ser- 
vices to  fulfil,  your  crafts  to  follow,  while  we  think  of 
nothing  but  these  sacred  themes.  Well;  be  it  so;  I 
commend  you,  at  least,  that,  leaving  every  thing,  you 
come  to  church,  without  fail,  on  a  Sunday."  Thus,  in 
substance,  o{)ens  the  third  homil}'.  I  hope  I  shall  not 
seem  to  be  advancing  a  captious  reiinement  in  saying 
that,  when  the  preacher  returns  to  his  theme,  he  makes 
a  representation  which  is  doctrinally  erioneous,  and  big 
30^ 


350  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

with  practical  mistakes:  let  ns  hear  hiin.  *'  I  have  said 
that  many  and  various  are  the  roads  of  repentance,  so 
that  salvation  may  be  rendered  the  more  easy.  For  if 
He  had  given  us  one  only  way,  we  might  have  rejected 
it,  saying  we  cannot  follow  that  path,  and  therefore  can- 
not be  saved.  But  now,  cutting  off  from  thee  any  such 
pretext,  he  hath  afforded  thee,  not  one  way  only,  nor  a 
second  only,  nor  a  third  only;  but  many  and  different; 
so  that  the  ascent  to  heaven  may  be  rendered  as  easy  to 
thee  as  possible!" 

Surely  this  is  at  ihe  best  blind  teaching,  and  so  blind 
as  to  border  upon  sheer  nonsense,  and  nonsense  of  the 
worst  tendency;  or  if  sense,  then  downright  error.  So 
far  as  there  could  be  any  good  sense  attached  to  Chry- 
sostom's  statement,  in  his  former  homilies,  that  there 
are  '*  several  paths  of  repentance,"  it  must  mean  that 
repentance  has  various  ingredients,  or  conditions,  each 
indispensable,  and  altogether  necessary  to  its  perfec- 
tion; but  here  we  lincl  him,  as  it  were,  standing  on  the 
plain,  and  pointinfj  to  t!ie  mount  of  God,  and  saying, 
yonder  is  the  heavenly  hill;  and  how  indulgently  has 
He  dealt  with  you,  wh.o  invites  yon  thither;  for  he  has 
opened  many  paths,  each  of  which  leads  to  the  gate; 
and  if  you  find  one  of  them  to  be  too  steep,  or  rugged, 
or  on  any  account  not  agreeable,  you  may  turn  and  take 
another.  That  is  to  say — if  you  don't  relish  confession, 
shed  a  plenty  of  tears,  and  that  will  do;  or  if  tears  are 
not  fleet  enough  with  you,  practise  humiliation,  and  that 
will  do:  and  then  he  goes  on  to  open  yet  other  paths, 
eacli  independent  of  the  other,  and  each  infallible.  If 
this  be  not  merely  foolish,  it  is  intensely  false  doctrine; 
and  whether  it  be  most  foolish,  or  most  false,  it  could 
not  be  otherwise  than  in  the  last  degree  pernicious. 
What,  however,  we  have  to   notice  particularly  is  the 


t^TJALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  351 

secret  consistency  of  errors,  such  as  these,  with  the 
master  error  of  the  ancient  church — the  independent  ef- 
ficacy of  the  mere  sacraments,  when  duly  solemnized. 
The  same  principle  which  led  Chrysostom  to  tell  the 
people — "  only  let  us  dip  you,  and  you  are  regenerate, 
justified,  and  ready  for  heaven,"  impelled  him  to  say 
also — This  mode  of  penitence,  or  that,  or  that,  duly 
made  use  of,  will  save  you;  and  one  of  them  nearly  as 
well  as  another. 

But  the  fourth  road  of  repentance!  and  what  may  that 
be?  Almsgiving!— the  queen  of  virtues,  and  the  readiest 
of  all  ways  of  getting  into  heaven.  Then  follows  the 
egregious  passage,  concerning  the  combined  merits  of 
almsgiving  and  virginity,  of  v/hich  I  have  already  pro- 
duced a  sufficient  sample.  In  this  instance,  however,  it 
appears  that  the  two  courses  must  coincide;  that  is  to 
say,  how  straightforward  soever  may  be  the  road  to 
heaven,  through  virginity,  you  may  not  think  to  walk 
in  it  unaccompanied  by  ahnsgiving!  Nothing  can  be 
much  more  distinct  than  is  language  such  as  the  fol- 
lowing— 

"  But  now  that  I  come  to  speak  of  the  way  of  alms- 
giving (as  a  path  of  repentance)  our  discourse  becomes 
animated.  Already  we  have  said  that  almsgiving  is  a 
vast  possession;  thence  advancing,  the  open  sea  of  vir- 
ginity receives  us.  Thou  hast,  therefore,  the  capital 
(species  of)  repentance  by  almsgiving;  which  is  able  to 
absolve  thee  from  the  bonds  of  thy  sins;  and  yet  again 
thou  hast  another  path  of  repentance,  as  ready  as  possi- 
ble, by  which  thou  mayest  get  a  discharge  from  thy  sins. 
Pray  every  hour."  It  may  be  said,  all  this  is  only  an 
incautious  mode  of  strongly  stating  the  force  and  effica- 
cy of  humility,  of  cliarity,  of  prayer,  and  so  forth;  and 
that,  with  a  little  trimming,  it  may  all  be  understood  in 


352  MEANS   OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

a  good  sense.  But  was  it  likely  to  l)e  so  understood  by 
the  mass  of  the  people,  and  especially  when  they  were 
constantly  exposed  to  the  same  ill-judged  and  delusive 
mode  of  teaching?  Or,  to  put  another  question,  tending 
to  the  same  point — Is  any  such  indiscretion  of  style 
fallen  into  by  men  who  themselves  understand  the  gos- 
pel scheme  of  salvation,  and  who  moreover  well  know 
how  prone  men  are  to  find  out,  and  to  follow  some  by- 
path to  heaven?  It  is  not,  in  fact,  until  after  the  church 
has  long  lost  its  hold  of  the  truth,  that  men  of  so  much 
intelligence,  fervour,  and  upright  intention,  as  belonged 
to  Chrysostom,  are  found  using  language  so  dark  and 
fatal. 

Our  great  preacher,  as  he  goes  along,  takes  care,  from 
time  to  time,  to  make  the  people  understand  that  it  is 
*'in  church"  that  a  truce  with  heaven,  on  wiiatever 
terms  obtained,  is  to  be  ratified.  "  Mast  thou  sinned? 
Enter  the  churcli,  and  wipe  out  thy  sin." 

The  fourth  homily  treats  of  the  consolations  of  repen- 
tance; among  which  are  those  derived  from  the  instances 
afi'orded  in  scripture  of  its  efficacy;  and  we  are  more- 
over told  to  follow  the  example  of  the  saints,  proficients 
in  philosophy,  who  did  not  suffer  themselves  either  to 
be  depressed  by  calamities,  or  elated  by  prosperity.  We 
are  moreover  to  betake  ourselves  to  God,  who  is  ever 
accessible.  *'  At  all  times,  beloved,  let  us  take  refuge 
in  God,  who  is  at  once  willing  and  able  to  release  us 
from  our  misfortunes:  it  is  otherwise  in  our  approaches 
to  men  ....  But  as  to  God,  there  intervenes  nothing 
of  the  sort  between  us  and  him,  who  may  be  entreated, 
without  a  mediator  (it  is  not  to  be  imagined  that  (^l»ry- 
sostom  here  intends  to  exclude  the  mediatorial  ofilce  of 
Christ)  witiiout  wealth,  without  cost,  he  yields  to  prayer: 
sufficient  is  it  to  cry  out  from  the  heart,  and  to  offer 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  353 

tears,  and  immediately  entering  in,  thou  mayest  draw 
him  to  thy  part." 

Let  our  preacher  have  the  benefit  of  all  that  is  rational 
and  scriptural  in  this  passage,  without  deduction  on  the 
score  of  its  questionable  phraseology. 

The  fifth  of  these  homilies  is  esteemed  as  one  of  Chry- 
sostom's  happiest  compositions:  is  then  its  subject  the 
gracious  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  softening  the 
heart,  and  in  consoling  it?  Is  it  the  power  and  willing- 
ness of  Christ  to  deliver  the  penitent  from  guilt  and 
fear?  is  it  the  sufficiency  of  the  atonement?  or  the  effi- 
cacy of  the  Redeemer's  mediation?  no  such  themes  oc- 
cupy the  eloquent  preacher,  on  this  occasion;  but  in- 
stead of  them  we  have — The  efficacy  and  merits  of 
Fasting!  Need  we  ask  whether  evangelic  warmth,  and 
purity  of  doctrine,  or  whether  a  dead  and  delusive  for- 
malism were  the  characteristic  of  the  Nicene  church? 
But  let  us  push  our  way  through  the  applauding  crowd, 
toward  the  preacher:  with  what  a  trumpet  blast  does  he 
usher  in — is  it  the  Saviour,  the  King  of  Glory?  no, 
alas!  but  the  awful  personage  whom  he  challenges  as  a 
tremendous  prince — Fasting!  terrible  indeed;  yet  not  to 
Christians,  but  to  the  race  of  demons!  His  approach  is, 
to  us,  like  that  of  some  august  monarch,  when  his  en- 
trance into  his  capital  is  announced!  and  yet  if  we  may 
credit  the  intimate  confessions  of  an  illustrious  modern 
professor  of  "church  doctrines,"  this  same  awful  per- 
sonage wears  sometimes  a  very  grim  visage,  even  when 
looked  at  by  his  meekest  admirers;  so  much  so,  as  that 
the  favour  of  a  few  hours  of  his  company  has  driven  the 
votary,  nolens  volens,  to  seek  the  consolations  of  *'  tea 
with  cream  and  buttered  toast!"  But  we  hasten  from 
the  cloisters  of  Oxford  to  the  great  church  at  Antioch, 
and  step  back  from  the  Christianity  of  the  nineteenth 
icenturv,  to  that  of  the  fourth. 


354  MEANS   OF  ESTniATING  THE 

*'  Wouldst  thou  learn  what  an  ornament  to  men  is — 
Fasting,  and  what  a  guard  and  preservative?  Look  well 
to  the  monastic  tribe,  blessed  and  admirable  as  it  is! 
For  these,  fleeing  from  the  tumults  of  common  life,  and 
running  away  to  the  summits  of  mountains,  rear  their 
huts  in  the  tranquil  wilderness;  as  it  were  moored  in  a 
sheltered  creek,  and  thither  lead  with  them  fasting,  as 
the  companion  of  their  lives.  Wherefore  it — (fasting) 
makes  angels  of  them,  men  as  they  are.  Nor  these 
alone  (the  eremites)  but  those  also  who,  in  the  midst  of 
cities  (the  coenobites)  by  the  same  means,  reach  the 
pitch  of  philosophy.  .  .  .  Wherefore  God,  at  the  mo- 
ment wlien  he  made  man,  instantly  committed  him  into 
the  hands  of  Fasting  as  to  a  loving  mother,  and  excel- 
lent mistress,  intrusted  with  his  welfare.  .  .  If  then 
fasting  were  indispensable  even  in  paradise,  (Gen.  ii. 
IG)  liov*^  much  more  so  out  of  paradise?  If  this  drug 
were  beneficial  before  the  wound  had  been  received, 
how  much  more  after?  .  .  .  Hast  thou  observed  how 
God's  anger  was  kindled  by  a  contempt  put  upon  fast- 
ing? (in  Adam's  sin.)  Learn  hew  he  rejoices  when  it  is 
honoured!"  Then  follow  the  scripture  instances;  among 
them  that  of  Peter  (the  immediate  subject,  fasting, 
having  been  dropt)  who,  notwithstanding  his  denying  his 
Master,  was,  after  a  brief  but  fervent  penitence,  restored 
to  his  dignity  as  "  the  pra^fect  of  the  universal  church." 
But  to  return  to  the  virtues  of  fasting;  see  the  instance 
of  Daniel,  and  of  the  three  children.  How  was  it  that 
the  body  of  the  one  escaped  the  teeth  of  the  lions,  and 
the  bodies  of  the  others  the  power  of  the  furnace? — 
"  Ask  Fasting,  and  it  shall  answer  thee,  and  clear  up 
this  enigma."  But  inasmuch  as  physicians  recommend 
that  powerful  remedies  should  not  be  administered  upon 
a  full  stomach,  lest  they  be  loo  much  for  the  strength  of 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICEXE  TIIEOLOGY.  355 

the  patient,  so  should  our  use  of  that  potent  drug,  Fast- 
ing, be  preceded  by  a  degree  of  moderation.  But  if  it 
be  resorted  to  when  the  body  has  already  been  some- 
what reduced,  and  the  mind  sobered,  it,  to  ^:f,i^a;cov,  will 
the  more  surely  avail  for  the  purging  of  the  muliitu'de  of 
old  sins.  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that,  whereas  in  the 
exordium  of  this  homily,  Fasting  is  introduced  as  an 
august  prince,  in  the  peroration,  he  makes  his  appear- 
ance in  a  new  character  (so  regarded  by  too  many)  as  a 
wild  beast.  Moreover,  in  what  sense  practically  our 
preacher's  doctrine  was  understood,  by  the  mass  of  the 
people,  may  be  gathered  from  such  indications  as  these. 
''If  I  shall  ask  you,  Why  have  you  been  to  the  bath  to- 
day? you  reply,  To  cleanse  the  body,  in  preparation  for 
the  fast.  But  if  I  ask,  And  why  did  you  get  drunk  (yes- 
terday?) again  thou  wilt  reply,  Because  I  am  to  fast  to- 
day." So  much  for  this  elaborate  discourse  upon  the 
duty  and  benefits  of  fasting,  as  a  way  or  means  of  repent- 
ance! Apart  from  the  customary  doxology  at  the  end, 
neither  the  love  of  God  nor  the  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  nor  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  has  any 
place  or  part  in  this  celebrated  sermon. 

The  sixth  homily  resumes  the  subject  of  fasting,  and 
offers  some  rational  corrective  advices,  to  those  who  had 
just  practised  it;  dehorting  the  people  from  the  custo- 
mary rush  toward  the  amusements  of  the  theatre;  or,  as 
we  may  say,  of  the  carnival  Nothing  affecting  our 
present  purpose,  or  nothing  new,  offers  itself  in  this 
sermon.  The  next,  the  genuineness  of  which  need  not 
be  questioned  on  account  of  its  doctrine,  affords  in- 
stances of  that  celerity,  in  passing  from  the  spiritual 
or  evangelic,  to  the  formal  side  of  any  subject,  which  is 
the  characteristic  of  the  Nicene  writings.  When  the 
eye  is  caught  by  a  text  which  might  suggest  a  strain  of 


356  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

a  happier  kind,  a  disappointment  almost  always  ensues;" 
and  if  there  be  two  admissible  modes  of  commenting 
upon  a  passage  of  scripture,  the  one  which  is  the  most 
ambiguous,  and  the  most  open  to  a  dangerous  miscon- 
ception, is  most  often  the  one  adopted.  *'  In  the  gos- 
pel for  to-day,  ye  have  heard  the  Saviour  saying  to  the 
paralytic — Son,  thy  sins,  which  are  many,  are  forgiven 
thee.  Now  the  forgiveness  of  sins  is  the  well-spring  of 
salvation,  and  the  premium,  i7rA&\ov,  of  repentance.  Re- 
pentance is  the  eflicacious  remedy  of  sin;  a  heavenly 
gift,  an  admirable  power,  a  gracious  victory  over  the 
penalty  of  laws."  How  much  better  a  method  of  popu- 
lar teaching  is  it  to  insist  rather  upon  the  first  cause, 
than  upon  the  proximate  causes  of  our  deliverance  from 
guilt  and  condemnation! 

Farther  on  in  this  seventh  homily,  there  is  a  repeti- 
tion whicli  tlie  preaclier  excuses,  on  account  of  the  im- 
portance he  attaches  to  the  subject,  of  his  doctrine  con- 
cerning the  all-availing  merits  of  almsgiving,  and  with 
an  addition  which  could  not  but  thicken  the  darkness  al- 
ready shed  upon  the  one  and  only  path  of  salvation. 
It  seems  as  if  Chrysostom  were  doing  his  utmost  to  put 
out  of  view  the  true  principle  of  Christian  beneficence, 
and  to  substitute  the  most  sordid  and  mercenary  motives. 
Condensing  the  paragraph,  the  substance  of  it  is  to  this 
effect — If  a  cup  of  cold  water,  which  costs  nothing, 
merits,  and  shall  obtain  its  reward;  with  how  vast  a  re- 
ward shall  the  equitable  Judge  remunerate  munificent 
charities,  and  the  costly  bestowment  of  garments,  mo- 
ney, and  the  like.  Should  we  regard  the  following,  as 
any  thing  more  than  a  foolish  extravagance,  certainly  of 
very  ill  tendency?  "  He  tliat  pitieth  the  poor,  lendeth 
to  the  Lord.  Now  if  we  lend  to  God,  we  make  him 
our  debtor.     Which  of  the  two  then  wouldst  thou  have 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  357 

him  to  be — thy  debtor,  or  thy  judge?  The  debtor  re- 
verences his  creditor;  the  judge  entreats  not  the  debtor." 

Among  the  many  repetitions  which  occur  in  these  ho- 
milies, one  hopes  to  find  amended  in  one  place,  what 
has  been  wrongly  put  in  another;  but  the  preacher's 
own  mind  liaving  too  far  lost  its  hold  of  the  great  prin- 
ciple of  the  gospel,  he  does  but  diversify  a  little  his  con- 
fused notions  of  the  scheme  of  salvation.  Thus,  in  the 
early  part  of  the  eighth  homily,  he  seems  to  be  ap- 
proaching a  better  doctrine,  while  speaking  of  the  divine 
mercy;  and  yet  hardly  reaches  higher  than  to  the  level 
of  a  "  gospel  according  to  David."  Seldom,  that  is  to 
say  three  or  four  times,  in  the  course  of  this  elaborate 
treatise,  does  he  satisfy  the  Christian  ear;  as  thus: — 
*'  Such  is  the  goodness  of  God,  that,  to  save  a  servant, 
he  spared  not  his  only  Son;  delivering  up  his  only-be- 
gotten, that  he  might  redeem  his  unthankful  servants, 
and  laying  down  the  blood  of  his  Son  as  the  price  of 
their  deliverance.  Oh  the  goodness  of  the  Lord!  Say 
not  then  to  me  again,  I  have  sinned  much,  how  can  I 
be  saved?  Thou  art  not  able  to  effect  this,  but  thy  Lord 
is  able,  and  so  able  as  to  blot  out  thy  transgressions." 

Few,  and  far  between,  are  passages  of  this  sort. 
When  they  occur,  they  serve  to  confirm  our  general  con- 
clusion, that  a  religious  S3^stem,  combining  capital  errors 
"with  something,  or  even  much,  of  what  is  true,  still 
takes  its  character,  as  a  practical  doctrine,  from  its  er- 
rors, rather  than  from  its  truths.  So  it  has  always  been 
with  popery,  and  so  was  it,  as  history  clearly  shows,  with 
the  Greek  church:  which  became  altogether  such  as  the 
Nicene  delusions  tended  to  make  it,  a  religion  of  super- 
stition, of  formalism,  and  of  the  most  puerile  mumme- 
ries. What  the  actual  and  immediale  effect  of  Chry- 
31 


358  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

sostom's  own  preaching  was,  may  be  gathered,  but  too 
plainly,  from  his  constant  tone  and  style,  whicli  do  not 
seem  to  imply  that  he  felt  liimself  to  be  addressing  spi- 
ritually minded  and  consistent  Christians;    but  ratlicr 
the  loose  church-going  and  p-ay-going  rabble,  high  and 
low,  of  a  debauched  and  luxurious  city.     That  his  con- 
gregation was  actually  of  this  sort,  is,  I  think,  a  fact 
that  is  borne  on  the  face  of  all  his  Ijomilies.     More- 
over, the  significant,  though  usual  consequence  of  ex- 
aggerating the  ritual  part  of  religion,  at  the  cost  of  the 
spiritual,  namely,  that  the  rites  themselves  came  to  be 
contemned  by  a  large  portion  of  the  people,  is  also  ap- 
parent.    It  is  nothing  but  a  straightforward  and  energe- 
tic teaching  of  Truth — spiritual   truth,  that  can  bring, 
even  the  rites  of  religion  into  general  esteem.     In  cor- 
roboration of  this  principle,  it  may  be  well  to  cite  a  pas- 
sage or  two  from  tlie  ninth  and  last  homily  on  Repent- 
ance, especially  as  we  shall,  at  the  same  lime,  obtain  a 
specimen  of  our  preacher's  style  of  speaking  of  the  eu- 
charislic  rite — lauded  more  than  the  Saviour,  and  never- 
theless held  in  contempt,  spite  of  the  preacher's  vehe- 
ment upbraidings,  by  the  people. 

Toward  the  close  of  this  ninth  homily  (and  of  the 
treatise)  Chrysostom  turns  toward  those  who,  even  during 
the  hour  when  the  rites  of  the  "  dreadful  and  mystic 
table  "  were  celebrating,  lounged  their  time  away  in  idle 
company,  and,  who,  in  doing  so,  belied  the  profession 
they  had  just  made  in  taking  part  in  the  liturgical  lan- 
guage. *'  Art  thou  not  afraid,  dost  thou  not  blush,  to 
be  found  a  liar  at  that  very  hour?  What!  the  mystic 
table  has  been  prepared;  the  Lamb  of  God  for  thee  is 
slaughtered;  the  priest  for  thee  contends — the  spiritual 
fire  from  the  sacred  table  ascends;  the  cherubim  holding 
their  stations  round  about,  while  the  seraphim  hovering 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  35^ 

aTOund,  and  the  six-winged  veiling  their  faces,  while  for 
thee  all  the  incorporeal  orders,  along  with  the  priest^ 
intercede.  The  spiritual  fire  descends;  and  for  thy  pu- 
rification, the  blond  from  the  spotless  side  is  emptied 
into  the  cup,  and  thou,  dost  thou  neither  tremble  nor 
blush,  to  be  found  false  (to  thy  professions)  at  this- 
dread  hour!  A  hundred  sixty  and  eight  hours  are  there 
in  the  week,  and  one  only  of  these  has  God  set  apart 
for  himself;  aud  this  one  dost  thou  devour  in  worldly 
business,  in  merriment,  or  in  any  thing  that  may  chance 
to  come  in  thy  way!  With  what  assurance  then  canst 
thou  afterwards  (at  any  other  time)  approach  the  myste- 
ries? with  a  conscience  how  defiled!  Wouldst  thou 
dare,  with  dung  in  thy  hands,  to  touch  the  skirts  of  an 
earthly  monarch?  Far  from  it.  Not  as  bread  shouldst 
thou  look  at  that  (bread)  neither  esteem  that  (cup)  as 
wine;  for  not  like  other  aliment  do  these  (elements)  de- 
scend into  the  draught.  Far  be  it;  think  no  such  things 
for  just  as  wax,  held  to  the  fire,  suffers  no  detriment,  as 
to  its  substance,  although  melted  all  away;  in  like  man- 
ner hold  it  to  be  true,  that  the  substance  of  the  myste- 
ries is  absorbed  by  the  body  (of  the  participant:)  where- 
fore, when  ye  approach  (the  table)  think  not  that  ye  re- 
ceive the  divine  body,  as  from  the  hand  of  man;  but  ra- 
ther as  was  the  fire  from  the  tongs  of  the  very  seraphim 
given  to  Isaiah!" 

Although  not  inseparably  connected  with  my  imme- 
diate argument,  I  feel  it  impossible  to  pass  the  above- 
cited  passage  without  directing  the  clerical  reader  to  a 
comparison,  which  indeed  can  hardly  have  failed  to 
force  itself  upon  his  own  mind,  while  reading  it.  Is  the 
style,  temper,  and  obvious  popular  import,  of  Chrysos- 
tom's  language,  as  here  quoted,  one  and  the  same  with 
that  of  the  church  ©f  England?     I  would  put  it  to  the 


360  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

clerical  reader,  whether  he  could  think  it  one  and  the 
same  thing  to  read,  before  the  communion,  tliis  speci- 
men of  Nicene  Christianity,  or  the  exhortation  actually 
appointed,  by  the  English  church,  to  be  read,  "  In  case 
the  minister  shall  see  the  people  negligent,"  &c.  What 
dignity,  what  simplicity,  what  fervour,  in  the  one:  what 
extravagance,  what  superstition,  what  revolting  pre- 
sumption in  the  other!  I  verily  believe  that,  even  the 
most  thorough-going  of  the  Oxford  Tract  divines  would 
shudder  at  the  thought  of  such  a  substitution;  and  I  am 
sure  the  majority  of  the  clergy  would  regard  it  as  no- 
thing less  than  a  treason  to  the  protestant  church  to  ad- 
mit it.  There  may  perhaps  be  a  distinction,  which 
however  I  have  never  been  able  to  retain  my  hold  of, 
between  the  Nicene  doctrine,  of  the  eucharist,  and  that 
of  the  church  of  Rome;  but  whatever  logical  and  acute- 
ly analytic  minds  may  make  of  such  a  distinction,  this 
is  clear  enough,  that,  in  the  view  of  the  people  at  large, 
the  two  doctrines  are  not  two,  but  one,  practically  the 
same,  and  alike  tending  to  fix  the  gross  apprehensions 
of  the  people  upon  the  mere  rite,  to  the  exclusion  of 
whatever  is  spiritual  in  religion. 

Opportunity,  1  hope,  will  be  afforded  me,  when  the 
ground  has  been  cleared  for  that  purpose,  for  placing,  in 
broad  contrast,  the  Nicene  and  the  English  churches, 
which,  allied  as  they  may  be  by  the  retention  of  half  a 
dozen  ambiguous  phrases,  dififer  substantially,  and  im- 
measurably. Such  a  contrast,  extreme  as  it  is  in  its  es- 
sential features,  would  warrant  an  appeal  to  the  honour 
and  conscience,  to  the  good  sense,  and  to  the  Christian 
feeling  of  every  clergyman,  and  the  appeal  would  be  to 
this  effect — Do  you  adhere  to  the  Nicene  fathers,  or  to 
the  English  reformers?  The  Oxford  Tract  controversy 
can  have  no  other  issue,  when  the  whole  question  comes 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  361 

to  be  fully  understood,  than  that  of  compelling  every 
clergyman  to  make  his  choice,  in  this  momentous  alter- 
native. 

But,  to  resume  my  immediate  argument.  We  have 
reviewed  Chrysostom's  nine  homilies  on  repentance.  I 
can  imagine  no  reason  why  this  set  of  sermons  should 
not  be  appealed  to  as  a  fair  sample  of  the  doctrine,  and 
of  the  ordinary  style,  of  the  great  Nicene  divines. 
Whatever  it  presents  which  may  startle  our  modern  and 
protestant  ears,  may  be  matched  with  the  greatest  ease, 
from  the  pages  of  the  same  writer,  and  his  contempora- 
ries; nor  would  any  purpose  be  answered  by  demurring 
at  the  sense  attributed  to  this  or  that  phrase,  or  passage. 
Chrysostom's  meaning,  to  the  very  same  effect,  may  be 
gathered  from  many  other  places. 

The  reader  has  seen  upon  what  points  of  doctrine  and 
practice  the  preacher  chiefly,  and  the  most  earnestly,  if 
not  exclusively,  insists: — we  have  heard  him,  most  in- 
cautiously, recommending  the  several  accompaniments, 
or  ingredients,  of  repentance,  as  severally  sufficient  for 
securing  salvation;  a  mode  of  speaking  as  grossly  delu- 
sive, as  any  thing  t!iat  is  met  with  in  the  worst  Romish 
writers  of  the  worst  times.  It  has,  moreover,  appeared, 
that,  while  extraordinary  importance  is  attached  by  him 
to  almsgiving,  as  a  direct  means  of  salvation,  the  preacher 
reserves  his  choicest  rhetoric,  as  a  free-will  offering,  to 
be  laid  upon  the  altar  of  celestial  virginity:  this  he  feels 
to  be  the  real  strengih  of  the  system  he  is  upholding. 

But,  nov/,  what  is  it  that  we  do  not  find,  in  these 
noted  homilies?  Alas!  (some  few  phrases  allowed  for) 
what  we  do  not  find  is — Christianity  itself.  In  particu- 
lar, there  is  barely  any  thing,  although  the  subject  seems 
necessarily  to  involve  it,  concerning  the  work  of  the 
31* 


36*2  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

Holy  Spirit,  in  softening  and  renewing  the  dead,  callous, 
and  depraved  affections  of  man.  No,  for  in  the  place 
of  the  work  of  the  Spirit,  we  have  the  wonders  of  the 
"justifying  pool."  There  are  two  or  three  passages, 
affirming  the  remission  of  sins,  through  the  merits  of 
Christ's  death;  but,  then,  neither  is  this  truth  expanded, 
abstractedly,  nor  is  it  connected  with  Paul's  doctrine  of 
justification  by  faith,  nor,  which  is  the  worst  omission, 
(because  it  implies  a  positive  error,)  is  the  vicarious 
work  of  Christ  in  any  way  represented  as  the  spring  or 
reason  of  genuine  repentance.  Tliis  is  surely  a  fatal 
deficiency.  Another  omission,  highly  significant  as  it 
respects  our  present  purpose,  must  be  noticed — namely, 
the  absence  of  any  of  those  pointed  cautions,  which  a 
well-informed  Christian  minister,"  knowiug  what  human 
nature  is,  invariably  introduces,  when  he  is  insisting 
upon  the  accessories  of  piety.  Let  us  suppose  that  a 
preacher  is  urging  upon  his  hearers  the  importance  of 
prayer,  humility,  almsgivijig,  and  the  like,  as  indispen- 
sable accompaniments  of  a  genuine  repentance,  will  fie 
fail  to  warn  the  formal,  and  the  self-righteous,  of  the 
danger  of  a  pharisaic  substitution  of  these  things,  for  the 
grace,  and  power,  and  merit  of  the  Saviour?  Very  iewj 
now-a-days,  would  approach  Chrysostom's  incautious 
style  in  these  instances;  nor  any,  but  the  most  blind, 
omit  those  correctives,  apart  from  which  this  mode  of 
teaching  reaches  the  flagitious  quality  of  the  worst  he- 
resy. 

Ps^icene  Chrisiianity,  ilien,  taken  in  its  fairest  samples, 
and  weighed  in  the  balances  of  common  sense  and  scrip- 
ture, or  put  in  the  scales  of  the  church  of  England,  and 
compared  with  the  articles  and  hOmilies,  and  wiiii  the 
lives  and  writings  of  the  English  reformers,  is  it  not 
found  wanting?     Does  it  not  well  deserve  our  indignant 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  363 

reprobation,  when  it  is  proposed  to  us  as  our  model  and 
authority?  By  Nicene  Christianity  must  be  meant,  if 
any  thing  is  meant,  not  a  shadowy  form  of  things, 
which  v/e  may  fondly  imagine  to  have  had  place  some- 
where, we  know  not  where,  and  to  have  been  in  its  per- 
fection at  some  time,  we  know  not  when;  but  precisely 
the  system,  doctrinal,  ritual,  and  ecclesiastical,  which 
meets  us  in  passing  up  and  down,  through  the  extant 
works  of  the  divines  of  the  third,  fourth,  and  fifth  cen- 
turies. This,  then,  is  the  system  which,  although  it  has 
long  been  reverenced  under  favour  of  a  disingenuous 
concealment,  must  fall  into  contempt;  nothing  can  save 
it,  when  once  it  comes  to  be  fully  understood.  Let  but 
a  patient  hearing  be  given  to  the  naked  evidence,  and 
the  result  is  inevitable;   nor  can  it  be  long  delayed. 

There  is  yet  a  consideration  suggested,  not  remotely, 
by  the  instance  I  have  adduced. — Let  it  be  said  that  nei- 
ther Chrysostom,  nor  his  contemporaries,  whatever  may 
seem  to  be  the  import  of  their  language,  held  the  doc- 
trines we  hear  them  sometimes  athrming,  uncorrected, 
in  a  sufficient  degree,  by  the  vital  principles  of  Christi- 
anity. 

Be  it  so,  ihen,  that  the  "church  principles"  so  stre- 
nuously maintained  by  the  Nicene  divines,  were,  in  fact, 
although  we  cannot  perceive  it,  duly  balanced  by  more 
spiritual  elements;  and,  in  a  word,  that  the  counterpoise 
was  just  such  as  we  might  wish  to  see  realized  among 
ourselves.  But  how  is  any  such  hypothesis  sustained 
by  history? — if  there  be  any  meaning  in  history. 

The  florid  orators,  bishops  and  great  divines  of  the 
fourth  century,  we  find,  one  and  all,  throughout  the  east, 
throughout  the  west,  throughout  the  African  churcii, 
lauding  and  lifting  to  the  skies  whatever  is  formal  in  re- 
ligion, whatever  is  external,  accessory,  ritual,  ecclesi- 


364  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

astical:  it  was  upon  these  things  lliat  they  spent  their 
strength;  it  was  these  that  strung  their  energies,  these 
that  fired  their  souls.  Virginity  they  put  first  and  fore- 
most; then  came  maceration  of"  the  body,  tears,  psalm- 
singing,  prostrations  on  the  bare  earth,  humiliations,  alms- 
giving, expiatory  labours  and  sufferings,  the  kind  offices 
of  the  saints  in  heaven,  the  wonder-working  efficacy  of 
the  sacraments,  the  unutterable  powers  of  the  clergy: 
these  were  the  rife  and  favoured  themes  of  animated  ser- 
mons, and  of  prolix  treatises;  and  such  was  the  style, 
temper,  spirit,  and  practice  of  the  church,  from  the 
banks  of  the  Tigris,  to  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic,  and 
from  the  Scandinavian  morasses,  to  the  burning  sands 
of  the  great  desert;  such,  so  far  as  our  extant  materials 
give  us  any  information.  And  all  this  was  what  it  should 
have  been!  and  this  is  what  now  v;e  should  be  tending 
toward! 

But  now,  what  was  the  condition  of  the  (so  called) 
Christian  church,  as  thus  taught,  trained,  and  hopefully 
sent  forward  by  tb.e  Niccne  fathers,  witiiin  the  short 
period  of  two  liundred  years?  Vvell  would  it  be  if  tliis 
condition,  as  well  of  the  east  as  of  the  west,  at  the  open- 
ing of  tlie  seventii  century,  were  far  better  understood 
among  us  than  it  appears  to  be:  we  sliould  then  entirely 
leave  ofl'  blaming  the  church  of  Kome,  as  having  de- 
bauched the  Christian  world;  and  should  retreat  with 
alarm,  with  pity,  with  disgust,  from  Nicene  Christianity. 

Within  the  short  period  of  two  hundred  years  from 
the  death  of  Clirysostom,  and  williin  less  than  a  century 
from  tlie  death  of  the  men  whom  lie  and  his  contempo- 
raries liad  trained,  and  while  siill  the  Nicene  system 
retained  its  integrity,  Mahomet  broke  upon  the  world, 
and  the  tempest  of  heresy  which  he  raised,  came  as  a 
blast  of  health  upon  the  nations.     ^Vhal  iMahomct  and 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  365 

his  caliphs  found  in  all  directions,  whither  their  cimeters 
cut  a  path  for  them,  was  a  superstition  so  abject,  an  ido- 
latry so  gross  and  shameless,  church  doctrines  so  arro- 
gant, church  practices  so  dissolute  and  so  puerile,  that 
the  strong-minded  Arabians  felt  themselves  inspired  anew 
as  God's  messengers  to  reprove  the  errors  of  the  world, 
and  authorized  as  God's  avengers  to  punish  apostate 
Christendom.  The  son  of  the  bond-woman  was  let 
loose  from  his  deserts,  to  "mock"  and  to  chastise  the 
son  of  the  free-woman.  We  read,  in  the  story  of  the 
moslem  conquests,  a  commentary,  written  by  the  finger 
of  God,  upon  Nicene  Christianity.  Or,  if  we  will  not, 
in  that  terrible  history,  acknowledge  God's  displeasure 
against  this  system  of  fraud,  folly,  and  impiety,  we  can 
hardly  refuse  to  listen  to  the  notices  contained  in  the 
Koran,  and  the  Mahometan  writers,  of  the  impression 
that  had  been  made  upon  the  Arabian  mind  by  the  spec- 
tacle of  the  debauched  Christianity  of  the  Greek  and 
African  churches.  It  is  here  that  we  may  the  most 
surely  learn  what  was  the  actual  result  of  the  system 
imbodied  in  the  writings  of  Chrysostom,  Basil,  Gregory, 
Cyril,  and  their  contemporaries. 

Does  it  seem,  then,  when  we  come  to  look  into  his- 
tory, as  if  these  same  "church  principles"  were,  in- 
deed, the  true  and  wisely-chosen  vehicles  and  preserva- 
tives of  genuine  Christianity?  Are  the  notions  we  may 
have  indulged  of  their  excellence  and  sanctity,  altoge- 
ther confirmed  by  our  researches  among  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal remains  of  the  times  of  Gregory  I.  and  Mahomet? 
What  has  become  of  common  sense,  to  say  nothing  of 
philosophy,  if  we  are  not,  on  the  contrary,  to  allow  that 
the  evidence  of  history  frowns  altogether  upon  these 
false  and  pernicious  doctrines,  and  declares  that,  to  ex- 
alt the  ritual  and  ecclesiastical  elements  of  reliorion,  into 


S66  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

a  position  of  equality  with  the  spiritual,  is  a  course  more- 
certainly  fatal  to  Christian  principles  than  that  of  pro- 
pagating even  impious  heresies. 

It  is,  besides,  a  task  of  no  difficulty  to  show  that,  al- 
though Nicene  Christianity,  'and  the  popery  of  the 
middle  ages,  differ  in  various  incidental  points,  the  for- 
mer passed  into  the  latter  in  the  course  of  an  easy  and 
inevitable  transition;  and  moreover,  that,  in  respect  of 
apostolic  Christianity,  the  one  was  to  the  full  as  fatally  de- 
lusive as  the  other;  \vhile  as  a  practical  system,  or  con- 
sistent scheme  of  ecclesiastical  despotism,  the  latter  might 
well  be  accepted  in  the  place  of  the  former.  A  careful 
comparison,  article  by  article,  of  the  two  systems  (if  two) 
imbodied  in  the  writings  of  Chrysostom  and  Bernard, 
respectively,  would  on  the  whole,  such  is  my  persuasion, 
leave  an  advantage  on  the  side  of  that  professed  by  the 
latter. 

Yet  so  complicated  are  all  human  affairs,  especially 
such  as  are  mixed  up  with  matters  of  opinion,  that  in- 
ferences the  most  convincing,  to  plain  understandings, 
drawn  from  the  actual  operation  and  issue  of  either  a  re- 
ligious or  a  political  system,  may  easily  be  evaded. 
Putting  such  evasions  however  out  of  sight,  I  would  ask 
unprejudiced  persons,  whether  the  religious  history  (if 
we  ought  to  call  it  a  religious  history)  of  Europe,  eastern 
and  western,  from  the  tifih  century  downward,  to  the 
fifteenth,  ought  to  be  admitted  as  recommendatory,  or  as 
condemnatory  of  the  Nicene  church  principles?  In  other 
words,  does  the  actual  result  of  the  experiment  which 
was  made  on  so  extensive  a  scale,  and  under  such  a  di- 
versity of  circumstances,  for  proving  that  Christianity 
is  best  promoted  by  enhancing  its  ritual  and  ecclesiasti- 
cal elements— does  this  result  justify  or  discourage  our 


QUALITY  OF  THE  XICENE  THEOLOGY.  367 

attempting  to  repeat  it?  Is  it,  let  us  candidly  be  told,  is 
it  with  a  fair  and  well-omened  promise  of  a  happy  issue, 
that  now  again,  we  are  to  set  about  the  work  so  zealous- 
ly urged  forward  by  the  Nicene  doctors — I  mean  the 
work  of  magnifying  the  church,  and  its  mysteries,  and 
its  ministers;  while  so  much  heart  and  labour  only  as 
could  then  be  spared,  is  allowed  to  the  endeavour  to  exalt 
the  spiritual  elements  of  religion? 

Against  such  an  enterprise  there  stands  opposed,  first, 
the  entire  mass  of  all  experience,  as  presented  on  the 
pages  of  history;  and  next,  the  whole  force  of  the  best  a 
priori  calculation  we  can  make  of  the  tendencies  of  hu- 
man nature,  v/hen  two  such  elements  are  offered,  on  any 
thing  like  even  terms,  to  its  choice.  But  more  than  all, 
we  are,  or  we  should  iliink  ourselves,  prohibited  from  so 
rash  an  attempt  by  the  manifest  intention  of  the  apos- 
tolic writings,  in  this  very  behalf,  and  by  the  explicit 
predictions  they  contain  of  the  very  corruptions  which 
thence  have  arisen. 

If  then  it  be  proposed  to  us  to  set  about  reviving  what 
are  called  "cliurch  doctrines,"  our  reply  might  be — 
either,  that  the  wliole  tenor  of  church  history  discourages 
such  an  endeavour: — or,  that  the  dictates  of  common 
sense  and  sound  philosophy  declare  against  it;  or  that 
the  spirit  and  letter  of  scripture  are  opposed  to  it.  But 
now  it  may  be  said,  and  as  waiving  any  such  conclusions, 
Is  it  not  possible  that,  as  in  one  age  church  principles, 
relatively,  may  have  been  lifted  to  too  high  a  level, 
so  in  another,  and  in  our  own,  for  instance,  they 
may  have  been  depressed  below,  or  far  below,  the 
line  which  marks  their  due  place  in  the  religious  sys- 
tem?— what  then  should  be  done?  are  we  not  to  en- 
deavour to  remedy  this  admitted  evil;  and  must  we  not, 
in  such  a  case,  ought  we  not,  to   use  all  means  for  re- 


368  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

Storing  what  has  so  fallen  out  of  its  place?  Yes;  but  by 
what  means,  or  in  what  order  of  proceeding  are  we  to 
make  the  attempt?  Plainly,  by  endeavouring  to  invigo- 
rate anew  the  spiritual  forces  of  piety,  and  then  it  will 
be  easy  enough,  under  a  wise  management,  to  restore 
the  ritual  elements:  nothing  is  in  fact  more  easy,  when 
once  men  are  thoroughly  awakened  to  a  sense  of  the  in- 
finite importance  and  excellence  of  the  great  realities  of 
the  gospel,  and  when  such  an  awakening  spreads  through 
a  community — nothing  is  more  easy  than,  at  such  a  time, 
to  secure  their  reverent  regard  to,  and  diligent  atten- 
dance upon,  the  exterior  means  and  observances  of  reli- 
gion. It  is  in  this  direction  only,  that  wliat  we  profess 
to  be  aiming  at,  can  actually  be  reached.  Nothing  is 
more  insane — slrictly  nothing  more  preposterous,  than 
the  endeavour  to  ivork  iipivard,  in  any  case,  from  the 
ritual  to  the  spiritual,  in  religion. 

Look  at  these  two  metliods  as  we  may  imagine  them 
to  have  been  exemplified  in  the  instance  which  we  have 
just  now  had  before  us,  of  the  church  at  Anlioch.  Cliry- 
sostom  bitterly  lamented  the  general  indifference  of  the 
people  of  his  charge  in  matters  of  religion,  and  especial- 
ly their  contempt  of  the  Lord's  supper.  Now,  with 
the  hope  of  effecting  a  reform  in  this  single  particular, 
two  courses  were  fairly  open  before  him;  the  one  was 
that  which  he  actually  adopted,  namely,  the  giving  the 
reins  to  extravagance  in  speaking  of  the  rite,  and  the 
pouring  forth  torrents  of  bombast  on  the  subject,  telling 
the  people  gener«//i/  that  the  eucharisl  and  baptism  were 
the  main  instruments  of  salvation,  and  assuring  them, 
as  to  the  former,  that  cherubim  and  seraphim  hovered 
trembling  over  tlie  altar,  veiling  their  faces,  lest  they 
should  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  consecrated  elements;  and 
moreover,  adding  the  impious  nonsense,  that  these  ele-- 


QTTALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  369 

ments  had  the  miraculous  property  of  melting  away  into 
the  animal  system;  and  that  they  never  took  the  course 
of  ordinary  aliment! 

This  was  one  method  of  bringing  the  people  back  to 
a  reverent  attendance  upon  the  rites  of  the  church;  and 
it  was  the  method  chosen  and  practised  by  Chrysostom 
and  his  contemporaries.  But  lliere  is  another  metliod 
(oh  that  it  had  been  once  tried!)  namely,  that  of  zeal- 
ously and  affectionately  opening  up  to  the  people  the 
evil  mysteries  of  their  own  hearts — convincing  them  of 
their  sin,  danger,  and  helplessness — speaking  to  them 
warmly  and  solemnly  of  the  sacred  influence  which 
overcomes  every  obstacle  in  the  way  of  man's  salvation, 
and  of  the  power  and  grace  of  Him  by  whom  that  salva- 
tion has  been  obtained.  This  is  another  method,  tend- 
ing not  less  certainly  (far  more  so)  toward  the  object  at 
first  proposed,  namely,  that  of  leading  the  people  on  to 
a  reverent  and  profitable  attendance  upon  the  external 
means  of  grace.  But  such  was  not  the  method  taken, 
or  ever  thought  of,  so  far  as  we  can  learn,  by  (he  Ni- 
cene  divines.  Yet  can  we  ourselves  hesitate  in  making 
our  choice  between  the  two? 

I  must  then  take  the  liberty  plainly  to  express  the  opi- 
nion, that  the  Oxford  Tract  writers,  religiously  desirous 
as  no  doubt  they  are,  to  correct  what  they  feel  to  be  the 
excesses  of  protestantism,  and  to  renovate  church  au- 
thority, to  enhance  sacramental  reverence,  and  to  deepen 
ritual  solemnity,  show  themselves  to  be  by  no  means 
wise  master  builders,  by  commencing  their  labours,  as 
they  do,  at  what  we  must  think,  the  wrong  end;  and  by 
persisting  to  carry  them  on  in  the  wrong  direction.  In 
that  direction  in  which  they  are  toiling  so  hard,  even 
their  immediate  object  is  not  to  be  attained.  A  people 
may  indeed,  by  such  perilous  tampering,  be  led  on,  and 
32 


370  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

beguiled,  into  the  swamps  of  an  abject  superstition;  but 
a  genuine  and  reverent  regard  to  religious  rites  and  ordi- 
nances, will  be  the  result  of  nothing  but  an  invigorated 
promulgation  of  a  pure,  apostolic  gospel. 

It  is  surely  for  the  sake  of  that  gospel — for  the  sake  of 
the  spiritual  realities  of  Christianity,  and  not  for  the 
mere  sake  of  the  ritual  and  ecclesiastical  elements  them- 
selves, that  these  zealous,  devout,  and  learned  men  are 
stirring  so  deeply  the  clerical  and  public  mind,  at  the 
present  moment.  So  far,  they,  and  those  who  may  op- 
pose their  endeavours,  might  seem  to  be  fully  agreed; 
and  tiien  tlie  controversy  would  appear  to  relate  merely 
to  the  means  fittest  to  be  used,  or  to  the  course  of  pro- 
ceeding which  might  be  thought  the  best  for  securing 
the  object  aimed  at  by  all  parties.  But  such  is  far  from 
being  the  real  quality  of  the  controversy;  for,  by  the 
opponents  of  the  Oxford  writers,  it  is  alleged,  and  on  no 
narrow  grounds  of  experience,  that,  to  prosecute  this 
ultimate  object  in  the  mode  adopted  by  the  early  church, 
and  carried  on  by  the  clnirch  of  Rome,  and  now  again 
so  earnestly  recommended  by  the  Oxford  divines,  is  not 
simply  (which  we  might  excuse)  to  lake  a  longer,  in- 
stead of  a  shorter  course,  but  to  take  a  course  which,  as 
to  the  mass  of  the  people,  leads  to  an  abyss  whence 
there  is  no  return!  From  that  treacherous  border  the 
tew  would  make  their  escape,  heavenward;  as  the  few, 
in  every  age,  have  es-caped  from  the  false  bosom  of  the 
Romish  church;  but  the  many — the  thousands  of  the 
people,  would  become  the  pitiable  victims  of  this  reli- 
gion of  sacraments. 

It  would  be  a  delusion  as  gross  as  this  ancient  delu- 
sion itself,  to  imagine  that  a  refined  and  spiritualized 
Nicene  Christianity,  such  a  system  as  is  nov/  issuing 
from  the  cloisters  of  Oxford,  would  prove  itself  maleri- 


QUALITY  OF   THE  NICEXE  THEOLOGY.  371 

ally  a  better  scheme  than  was  its  original,  or  than  was 
tlie  papal  church;  or  that  it  would  not  lead  on  to  the 
same  spiritual  debauchery  and  tyranny.  The  principle 
is  one  and  the  same,  and  it  is  a  principle  with  which 
neither  the  gospel  nor  the  well-being  of  society  will  ever 
consist.  If,  in  fact,  this  newly  refined  gnosticism  should 
retain  the  highly  wrought  polish  imparted  to  it  by  its 
modern  originators,  it  would  be  only  so  much  the  more 
dangerous;  inasmuch  as  it  would  captivate  more  minds, 
and  be  itself  less  open  to  assault.  But  it  would  not  re- 
tain its  first  refinement — no,  not  through  the  lifetime  of 
the  next  series  of  its  adherents:  the  tendencies  of  human 
nature  are  powerful  as  a  deluge,  headed  up  for  awhile; 
and  they  will  take  their  constant  course.  The  very 
youths  who,  at  this  moment,  are  being  lulled  by  the  poi- 
sonous atmosphere  of  the  Nicene  levels,  will,  twenty 
years  hence,  or  sooner,  interpret  the  doctrine  they  are 
receiving  in  a  new,  and  a  more  intelligible,  and  practi- 
cal, and  consistent  sense;  and,  in  fact,  while  they  will 
teach  the  vulgar  to  revere  their  deceased  masters,  they 
will,  themselves,  and  in  private,  scorn  their  memory  as 
scrupulous  devotees,  and  mock  the  recollection  of  their 
devout  sincerity.  That  shall  happen  to  them — the  Ox- 
ford worthies  of  our  times,  which  has  happened  to  the 
saints  of  Rome — to  be  worshipped  by  the  rabble,  and 
spit  upon  by  the  priests.  The  plague,  not  otherwise 
stayed,  a  very  few  years  would  be  enough  for  bringing 
back  upon  England,  not  merely  the  mummeries  always 
attendant  upon  a  religion  of  sacraments,  nor  merely  the 
filih  and  folly,  the  lies  and  woes  of  the  ancient  monkery, 
but  the  palpable  and  terrible  cruelties  of  the  times  of  St. 
Dominic,  of  Ximenes,  and  of  Bonner.  If  there  are  those 
who  will  scout  any  such  anticipation,  as  a  mere  contro- 
versial flourish,  or  rhetorical  extravagance,  or  as  a  dis- 


372  MEANS  or  ESTIMATING  THE 

ingenuous  endeavour,  on  the  part  of  a  writer,  to  enlist 
popular  fears  and  vulgar  prejudices  on  bis  side,  let  them 
read  again  the  history  of  Europe,  and  of  the  church, 
from  the  second  century  downwards,  and  gather  thence 
what  hitherto  must  have  escaped  them— the  first  princi- 
ples of  human  nature,  and  of  the  social  system  as  de- 
veloped by  religious  motives.  Of  this  history  hitherto 
we  have,  on  all  sides,  known  far  too  little. 

I  cannot  conclude  this  tract  without  repeating  the  pro- 
fession I  have  already  made,  of  an  entire  exemption 
from  every  acrimonious,  or  disrespectful  feeling  towards 
the  eminent  persons  whose  public  conduct,  as  divines,  I 
am  compelled  to  speak  of  in  terms  of  the  strongest  re- 
probation. No  one  who  is  accustomed  to  think  of  Atha- 
nasius,  Chrysostom,  Basil,  and  Ambrose,  and  others  of 
that  age,  as  devout  and  upright  men,  or  to  peruse  the 
works  of  the  Romanist  writers,  with  pleasure  and  defe- 
rence (reserving  always  an  opinion  of  their  Christianity) 
can  feel  it  to  be  difficult  to  entertain  sentiments  of  re- 
spect and  esteem  towards  men  who  are  not  inferior,  pro- 
bably, to  any  of  the  best  of  the  latter  class,  and  who, 
without  a  doubt,  are  fiir  more  enlightened,  as  Chris- 
tians, than  were  any  of  the  former. 

It  remains,  then,  and  it  is  a  task  which  may  be  ac- 
complished within  the  limits  of  the  next  number,  to  ex- 
hibit the  bearing  of  the  principle  and  practice  of  religious 
celibacy  upon  the  ethical  system,  and  the  actual  morals 
of  the  ancient  church— upon  its  ritual  institutions,  and 
upon  its  ecclesiastical,  or  hierarchical  constitutions.  We 
shall  then  be  in  a  position,  or,  at  least,  so  far  as  so  imper- 
fect a  sketch  of  a  very  extensive  field  can  put  us  in  po- 
sition, for  giving  a  reply  to  two  questions,  First,  Wlie- 
ther  the  celibate,  and  its  attendant  monkery,  be  really 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  373 

separable  from  the  other  elements  of  Nicene  Christi- 
anity; and  if  not,  then,  Secondly,  whether,  afier  the  sam- 
ple we  shall  have  had  of  the  former,  we  shall  arccept  and 
imitate  the  two,  as  one  system;  or  whether  we  shall  re- 
ject both  together? 

In  acquitting  myself  of  that  part  of  my  task  which 
yet  lies  before  me,  while  it  will  be  unavoidable  to  ad- 
duce, or  to  refer  to,  evidence  such  as  one  would  have  been 
glad  to  have  left  untouched,  I  shall  also  find  a  proper  op- 
portunity, which,  indeed,  I  am  most  anxious  to  meet 
with,  for  giving  its  due  commendation  to  the  ancient 
church;  and,  in  fact,  for  righting  a  little  the  balance 
between  ancient  and  modern  Christianity.  Truth,  vir- 
tue, and  piety,  as  a  whole,  have  not  been  the  monopoly 
of  any  one  age,  or  communion:  nor  has  any  body  of  Chris- 
tians so  far,  or  so  completely,  fallen  from  scriptural  ex- 
cellence, as  not  to  have  retained  some  specific  merits,  as 
compared  with  other  bodies.  The  ancient  church,  while 
fatally  deluded,  nevertheless  might  boast  several  such 
merits;  and  some,  of  a  high  order;  and  it  will  be  toper- 
form  at  once,  an  edifying,  a  gratifying,  and  a  consoling 
office,  to  bring  these  excellences  forward,  and  to  use 
them  as  a  m.eans  of  correcting  our  defective  modern  no- 
lions  and  practices. 

I  feel  perfectly  certain  that,  among  those  who  would 
the  most  decisively  and  warmly  resist  the  culpable  en- 
deavour now  making  to  foist  Nicene  Cliristianity  into  the 
room  of  the  reformation,  there  are  many  who  would 
gladly  and  meekly  listen  to  any  reasonable  reproofs,  or 
corrections,  drawn  from  tb.e  example,  the  lives,  or  the 
teaching  of  the  early  Christianas,  and  tending  to  supply 
what  may  be  v/anting  in,  or  what  may  have  dropped  out 
of,  our  proteslant  principles  or  practices.     When  there- 


374  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING  THE 

fore  occasions  of  this  sort  may  present  themselves,  I 
shall  readily  embrace  tliem,  not  at  all  fearing  to  offend 
well  trained  protestant  ears.  On  the  contrary,  I  am  sure 
it  will  afford  a  cordial  satisfaction  to  religious  minds  to 
find  that  the  church  has  been  the  church — a  body  vivi- 
fied by  virtue  and  piety,  in  every  age:  nor  will  this  sa- 
tisfaction be  at  all  spoiled,  ratiier  it  will  be  made  the 
more  lively,  when  it  happens  that,  from  such  compari- 
sons of  age  with  age,  a  lesson  of  humiliation  comes  home 
to  ourselves.  There  would,  I  am  persuaded,  be  no  ha- 
zard in  engaging,  on  behalf  of  the  sound  protestant  com- 
munity in  this  country,  that,  while  it  would  reject  with 
indignation  the  unwise  endeavour  now  made  to  drive  liie 
church  back  upon  the  foolish,  flimsy,  and  pernicious 
church  principles  of  the  Nicene  age,  it  would  meekly 
submit  itself  to  a  correction,  drawn  from  any  bright  ex- 
amples of  self-denial,  constancy,  or  devotedness,  which 
that  age  may  offer. 

We,  I  mean  sound  protestants,  know  what  human 
nature  is,  and  always  remember  that,  while  it  has  never 
been  such  as  should  make  it  a  fit  object  of  worship,  it 
does  not  at  any  lime  stand  excused  from  the  duty  of 
humbly  comparing  its  rale  of  wisdom  and  goodness  with 
that  of  other  times.  We,  therefore,  neither  crouch 
before  the  doctors  of  the  Nicene  age,  any  more  than  we 
do  before  those  of  any  other  period;  nor  do  we  utterly 
condemn  any  set  or  communiiy  of  our  fallible  predeces- 
sors and  brethren.  All  such  superstitions,  and  all  such 
intolerance,  we  utterly  disclaim,  and  leave  both  to  Ro- 
manists, to  whom,  however,  in  their  turn,  we  are  per- 
fectly willing  and  ready  to  look  for  any  patterns  of  ex- 
cellence, whether  more  or  less  complete,  which  they 
may  have  to  produce. 

This  is  OUR  catholicity,  and  this  is  our  reverence  for 


QUALITY  OF  THE  NICENE  THEOLOGY.  375 

venerable  antiqiiit}'!  We  venerate  antiquity,  and  we 
are  curious  to  penetrate  its  secrets,  because  we  firmly 
believe  that,  in  every  age,  God  has  had  his  people.  We 
venerate  antiquity,  just  as  we  venerate  any,  even  the 
most  despised  community  of  modern  Christians,  who 
appear,  in  any  degree,  to  enjoy  the  presence  and  influ- 
ence of  the  Holy  Spirit;  and  who,  as  it  may  seem,  along 
with  many  and  deplorable  errors,  yet  "  love  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  in  sincerity." 

We,  too,  heartily  make  profession  of  our  belief  in  the 
*'  Holy  Catholic  Church;"  and  after  having  made  this 
profession,  and  after  liaving  attached  an  intelligible  and 
most  comfortable  meaning  to  the  words — venerable  words 
as  they  are,  we  should  shudder  as  much  at  the  cold  im- 
piety of  excluding  from  its  pale  the  deluded  genuine 
Christians  of  the  Nicene,  or  Romish  churches,  as  the  de- 
luded (if  they  be  deluded)  genuine  Christians  of  some 
avoided  and  abhorred  sect  of  our  own  times.  This  is 
OUR  catholicity;  and  it  fills  our  hearts  with  comfort  and 
our  mouths  with  praise:  it  brightens  the  sadness,  and 
composes  the  distractions  of  earth;  and  it  brings  into  our 
bosoms  something  of  the  genial  emotions  which,  we  be- 
lieve, will  make  up  the  felicity  of  the  *' communion  of 
saints"  in  heaven. 

Whether  we  shall  find  in  heaven  "  all  the  saints"  of 
the  calendar,  we  do  not  well  know;  but  we  do  know  that 
we  shall  meet  there  "  a  great  multitude,"  of  those  whom 
the  intolerant  have  wished  in  perdition,  or  have  sent  into 
the  skies  through  flames,  and  from  racks  and  gibbets; — 
and  we  would  almost  as  soon  lend  a  hand,  in  this  work, 
to  a  Bonner,  as  admit  to  our  creed  or  bosom,  any  notion 
or  feeling,  the  effect  of  which  would  be  to  alienate  us, 
even  in  thought,  from  any  whom  there  we  shall  meet. 

This  is  our  catholicity;  nor  does  it  take  up  a  grain  of 


376  MEANS  OF  ESTIMATING,  &C. 

that  mingled  indifTerence  and  infidelity  which  is  called 
laliludinavianism.  Tiiis  word,  as  we  understand  it, 
means  what  is  equivalent  to  professing,  eitlier  that  nine- 
teen and  twenty  are  absolutely  equal;  or  that  the  difTer- 
ence  between  the  two  sums  is  not  worth  regarding.  But 
such  a  profession,  when  it  attaches  to  matters  of  religion, 
is  not  a  mere  absurdity,  but  an  impiety  also;  and  it  is  a 
certain  indication  of  such  a  coldness  of  heart  as  would 
lend  a  man  to  tlirow  up  his  interest  in  the  nineteen  parts 
of  his  failh,  as  easily  as  in  the  one.  Now,  far  from 
sharing  in  either  the  absurdity,  or  the  impiety,  of  a  lati- 
tudinarian  temper,  we  give  a  proof  of  how  justly  we  es- 
timate the  value  of  the  nincfeen  elements,  or  points  of 
religion,  by  recognising  their  aggregate  worth,  even  when 
the  one  may  be  wanting. 

But  now  we  find  fault  with  the  catholicity  that  attends 
"cliurch  principles,"  on  this  very  account,  that  it  drives 
men  into  at  once  tlie  absurdity,  and  the  impiety,  of 
making  as  much  ado  about  the  one,  as  about  the  nine- 
teen parts  of  their  Cliristinnity;  or  even  to  attach  more 
practical  importance  to  the  one,  than  they  do  to  tlie  nine- 
teen. AVhile  the  laliluuinarian  slights  the  circumstan- 
tials of  religion,  because  he  inwardly  cares  little  or  no- 
thing about  its  substance,  the  zealot  of  "  church  princi- 
ples," by  magnifying  enormously  the  importance  of  its 
<"ircumstantials,  puts  a  real  contempt  upon  the  substance; 
and  he  (h)es  so,  probably,  under  the  infiuence  of  the  very 
feame  feeling  of  secret  disalTection  to  that  substance. 

On  the  contrary,  the  catholicity  which  we  profess, 
gives  the  most  convincing  pronf  possible  of  its  remote- 
ness from  latiludinarian  indiflerence,  or  chiHincss  of 
heart,  by  opening  its  arms  to  al!  who  can  furnish  any 
credible  evidence  oC  tlieir  possessing  that  substance, — 
"VVho  is  it  then  that  steers  the  farthest  from  infidelitv — he 


THE  RULE  OF  RELIGIOUS  CELIBACY,  &C.      377 

T.'ho  will  never  acknowledge  Christianity  at  ail,  except 
v.'hen  it  meets  him  trimly  aiiired  in  the  court  livery  he 
is  fond  of?  or  he  who  heartily  welcomes  it,  even  when 
he  may  much  dislike  the  garb  which,  in  any  instance,  it 
happens  to  wear? 


THE  RULE  OF  RELIGIOUS  CELIBACY,  AS  LAID 
DOWN  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT. 

No  difficulty  attaclies  to  the  subject  of  religious  celi- 
bacy if  we  confine  ourselves  to  what  is  said  concerning 
it  by  our  Lord,  and  the  apostles;  nor  can  even  the  most 
fervent-minded  Christians  be  in  danger  of  running  into 
extravagance  on  this  ground,  so  long  as  the  great  prin- 
ciples of  the  gospel  are  understood,  and  their  genuine 
influence  is  admitted.  But  the  moment  when  these 
principles  are  compromised,  and  when  the  humble  and 
happy  path  of  faith  and  true  holiness  is  abandoned,  and 
a  factitious  pietism  is  courted,  then  fervour  becomes  en- 
thusiasm, and  every  folly  and  enormity  of  the  ascetic 
life  follows  in  rapid  succession. 

Thus  it  was  with  the  ancient  asceticism;  nor  with  this 
error  alone;  and  it  is  a  singular  circumstance  that  so 
close  an  analogy  subsists  between  the  two  subjects  of 
celibacy  and  martyrdom,  as  well  in  regard  to  the  rule 
laid  down  for  each  by  our  Lord  and  the  apostles,  as  to 
the  fatal  misunderstanding  of  that  rule  by  the  ancient 
church,  that  if  any  ambiguity  may  be  thought  to  em- 
barrass the  one  of  these  subjects,  it  may  readily  be 
cleared  up  by  a  direct  analogical  argument,  derived  frora 
Jthe  other.     The  fact  is  really  curious,  as  well  as  import 


378  THE  RULE  OF  RELIGIOUS  CELIBACY, 

tant  in  a  practical  view,  that,  from  the  moment  when 
the  cliiirch  was  left  to  its  own  discretion,  it  went  astray, 
or,  as  we  might  say,  ran  wild,  on  both  these  parallel 
lines;  so  that  if  we  were  balancing  in  regard  to  the  one, 
and  doubting  whether,  after  all,  the  practice  of  antiquity 
was  not  substantially  apostolic,  we  no  sooner  turn  to 
the  other,  than  we  perceive  the  not-to-be-misnnderstood 
indications,  of  sheer  enthusiasm,  and  of  an  almost  total 
want  of  sound  evano^elic  feelin^. 

o  o 

If  at  any  time  one  were  yielding  oneself  to  the  natu- 
ral and  agreeable  illusion  of  supposing  that  the  early 
church  enjoyed  a  continuity  of  that  miraculous  influence 
which  preserved  the  inspired  men  from  the  follies  and 
errors  that  are  incident  to  humanity,  and  which  are  so 
abundantly  generated  by  religious  excitements — if  one 
were  thinking  this  to  have  been  the  fact,  the  dream- is 
instantly  dispelled  by  merely  looking  into  the  ancient 
martyrologies.  Affecting  and  admirable  as  are  many  of 
these  memorials  of  Christian  fortitude,  we  instantly  feel 
that,  when  compared  with  the  temper,  principles,  and 
style  of  t!ie  inspired  persons,  a  something  essential  is 
wanting,  and  that  a  something  fatal  has  come  in  its  place. 
We  are  breathing  another  atmosphere,  and  another  co- 
lour is  spread  over  all  oi^jects.  These  good  men,  the 
early  martyrs,  spoke,  acted,  and  suffered  nobly;  and  we 
love  and  admire  them;  and  we  also  find  it  easy  to  follow, 
in  their  case,  those  workings  of  human  nature  whicjj, 
under  trials  so  severe  and  unusual,  hurried  them  far  be- 
yond tiie  modest  line  of  evangelical  simplicity.  We  are 
not  now  intending  to  deal  rigorously  witli  these  wor- 
thies; but  are  simply  noticing  the  fact  that  they  did  so 
act  as  men  are  likely  to  do,  who  are  not  benefited,  more 
than  we  ourselves  may  be,  by  supernatural  aids. 

This  is  not  the  place  for  entering  into  argument  with 


i 


AS  LAID.  DOWN  IN  THE  NEW  TESTA:VIEXT.  379 

any  (a  hopeless  task  in  truth)  who  might  proress  to 
thhik.  the  early  marlyrologies,  and  the  florid  repeliiions 
of  them  by  the  Nicene  orators,  to  be  ahoo-ether  in  the 
style  and  temper  of  the  New  Testament.  I  assuir.e,  on 
the  contrary,  that  the  marked  difference  is  perceived, 
and  fully  admitted,  by  all  candid  persons.  But  then,  if 
there  be  such  a  difference,  it  involves  the  fact  that  the 
ancient  cluirch  had  lost  its  hold  of  evangelic  simplicity 
in  regard  to  th.e  rule,  and  the  motives  of  martyrdom; 
and  then  there  can  be  no  ground  on  which  to  resist  the 
evidence  which  attests  its  having  also,  and  as  early,  fal- 
len into  an  error  in  relation  to  celibacy,  which  error  was 
only  another  consequence  of  the  same  departure  from 
apostolic  doctrine. 

The  rule  of  martyrdom  may  be  stated  to  this  eiFect. — 
The  Lord  demands  of  every  one  who  would  not  be  de- 
nied by  him  at  the  last,  that  he  shall  be  willing  rather 
to  sufler  the  loss  of  all  things,  and  of  life  itself,  than 
deny  him  before  men.  This  first  stipulation  of  our 
Christian  profession,  is  absolute,  and  clear,  and  of  per- 
manent obligation;  and  if  any  cases  arise  in  which  it  may 
be  doubtful  what  "denying  Christ"  means;  as  when 
Christians  have  been  required,  by  a  usurping  church,  to 
violate  their  consciences  in  relation  to  points  not  of  su- 
preme importance,  then  the  ambiguous  case  falls  under 
a  broader  rule,  namely,  that  of  suffering  any  extremity 
sooner  than  defile  the  lips  by  an  insincere  profession, 
especially  if  that  profession  have  a  bearing  upon  reli- 
gion; for  a  prevarication  of  this  sort,  whatever  may  hap- 
pen to  be  the  immediate  subject  of  it,  is  a  '*  lyino-  unto 
God,"  and  carries  a  peculiar  turpitude. 

But  then,  while  this  serious  duty  is  peremptory,  and 
of  universal  application,  not  less  so  is  the  })recept  that 
the  Christian  is,  in  all  case?,  to  withdraw  himself  from 


380  THE  RULE  OF  RELIGIOUS  CELIBACY, 

SO  terrible  an  alternative,  if  he  may  do  it  either  by  fliglitsr 
or  by  availing  himself  of  any  civil  privilege,  or  forensic 
plea,  which,  if  equitably  interpreted,  would  screen  him 
from  the  rage  of  iiis  persecutors.  The  apostles,  in  their 
own  conduct,  exemplified  both  parts  of  this  injunction. 
Peter,  indeed,  once  forgot  the  first:  Paul,  again  and 
again,  acted  upon  the  second. 

But  then  a  passage  or  two  occurs  in  which  something 
beyond  this  strict  rule  is  held  before  those  who  should 
actually  be  called,  in  compliance  with  it,  to  suffer  loss, 
and  to  bleed  for  the  sake  of  Christ.— There  is,  as  it  ap- 
pears, a  gracious  reward,  and  an  eminence  of  happiness, 
to  be  conferred,  by  sovereign  goodiK^ss,  upon  sufferers 
for  truth.     By    these   promises    genuine   sufferers    for 
Christ's  sake  have  in   every  age  been  wont  to   sustain 
their  fortitude;  and  just  so  long  as  the  great  evangelic 
principle  of  piety  is  adhered  to,  and  its  humbling  influ- 
ence felt,  all  is  safe:  the  due  counterpoise  of  motive  is 
preserved,  and  while  the  heart-cheering  hope  of  a  "bet- 
ter resurreciion"  is  admitted,  enthusiasm,  self^righteous- 
ness  and  presumption  are  avoided.     It  is  thus,  in  fact, 
that  we  find  the  martyrs  of  the  reformation,  generally  to 
have  suflered  and  died.     The  gospfl,  which  had  then 
just  been  recovered,  and  which  was  entertained  in  its 
energy  and  beauty,  carried  these  worthies,  unhurt,  not 
merely  through  the  ordeal   of  torture  and  a  fiery  death, 
but  safe  through  the  far  more  difficult  trial  of  high  reli- 
gious excitement.     In  thousands   of  instances   the  vic- 
tims of  papal  ferocity  have  died,  not  only  joyfully,  and 
resolutely;  but  what  is  more— meekly  and  humbly. 

Why  did  not  the  age  of  protestant  suffering  (rare  and 
discouraged  instances  excepted)  why  did  it  not  produce 
iis  bands  of  insolent  confessors,  its  knights  spiritual, 
stalking  in  and  out  of  the  church,  as  a  privileged  class, 


AS  LAIJD  DOWN  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.  S81 

rich  in  supererogatory  merit,  and  as  such  entitled  to  the 
honour  of  violating  all  church  order?  Why  have  not 
our  protestant  preachers  been  used  to  spend  their  clioi- 
cest  rhetoric  upon  the  commemorations  of  the  martyrs 
of  protestantism?  Why  is  it  that  a  very  little  of  this 
sort  of  declamation  has  been  felt  to  be  more  than  enough? 
Why  have  we  seen  no  pilgrimages  to  the  spots  where 
our  English  worthies  suffered?  Vv  hy  have  we  not  been 
used  to  entreat,  for  ourselves  and  the  church,  the  all- 
prevailing  advocacy  (patrocinium)  of  Latimer,  and  Rid- 
ley, and  Hooper,  in  the  heavens?  Why  have  no  mira- 
cles been  wrought  by  their  rescued  finger-bones  or  teeth? 
Why  do  not  our  churches  boast  of  bottles  of  the  blood, 
and  locks  of  the  hair  of  our  martvrs?  No  such  thino-s 
have  been  done,  or  tolerated,  in  the  protestant  church, 
simply  because  the  protestant  church  has  understood 
something  of  the  first  principles  of  Christianity,  and 
has,  in  the  main,  been  not  merely  orthodox,  but  evan- 
gelic; and  has,  therefore,  abhorred  the  practices,  and 
scorned  the  sentiments,  which  were  in  universal  esteem 
in  the  Nicene  church. 

It  cannot  be  necessary  in  this  place  to  describe  what 
has  so  often  found  a  place  in  modern  church  histories, 
namely — first  the  enthusiasm,  then  the  fanaticism,  and 
then  the  unbounded  superstitions  which  were  connected 
with,  and  which  utterly  spoiled  the  otherwise,  noble 
constancy  of  the  ancient  church.  To  say  all  in  a  word, 
the  sufferings  of  the  second  and  third  centuries,  became 
the  curse  and  ruin  of  the  fourth  and  fifth;  and  so  it  was 
that  the  Enemy,  who  had  altogether  been  foiled  in  his 
rage,  triumphed  in  his  craft. 

But  what  is  to  be  especially  observed  is  this,  that  all 
the  enthusiasm,  and  all  the  fanaticism  of  the  early  mar- 
tyrdoms,  and  much  of  the  superstition  which  thence 
33 


382        THE  RULE  OF  RELIGIOUS  CELIBACY, 

took  its  occasion,  sprung  directly  from  certain  abused 
passages  of  scripture,  and  that  the  illusion  sustained 
itself  by  quoting  text  upon  text;  nevertheless  not  until 
after  the  genuine  principles  of  Christianity  had  been 
coLnpromised.  Now  this  is  precisely  the  case  wiih  the 
parallel  enthusiasm,  fanaticism,  and  superstition,  of  the 
ancient  celibacy — all  was  justified  by  scripture — the 
gospel  having  first  been  discharged  from  its  place  in  the 
minds  of  the  people,  and  tlieir  teachers. 

It  is  even  now  asked  by  some,  did  not  the  ascetic  sys- 
tem support  itself  by  aii  appeal  to  scripture?  Yes,  and 
so  has  every  superstition  of  the  papacy,  and  so  did  the 
enormities  of  the  Donatists,  and  so  the  atrocities  of  the 
fanatics  of  Munster;  so  the  lawless  bloodshed  and  cruelty 
of  the  crusades,  so  the  horrors  of  the  inquisition,  and 
so  (to  return  to  our  point)  the  enthusiasm  of  martyrdom. 
But,  in  all  such  cases,  how  specious  soever  may  be  the 
plea  of  the  deluded  party,  a  simple  course,  clearing 
every  difllcully,  is  open  to  us — Let  but  the  great  princi- 
ples of  the  gospel  be  restored  to  their  phice  in  the  heads 
and  hearts  of  Christians,  and  then  the  practical  misinter- 
pretation of  single  texts  is  at  once  obviated;  for,  not 
merely  are  such  misinterpretations  then  seen  to  be  op- 
posed to  the  spirit  and  tendency  of  tlie  New  Testament, 
but,  as  they  severally  spring  from  modes  of  feeling  which 
will  not  consist  with  a  genuine  evangelic  feeling,  they, 
in  fact,  find  no  place,  where  better  motives  are  in  vigour. 
A  man,  whose  njind  is  fraught  with  apostolic  sentiments, 
will  neither  adore  a  relic,  nor  worship  the  image  of  a 
saint,  nor  pray  to  the  Virgin,  nor  burn  a  heretic,  nor  offer 
himself  to  be  burned,  nor  drive  spikes  into  his  sides,  nor, 
if  he  be  unmarried,  will  he  call  himself,  or  allow  him- 
self to  be  called  a  terrestrial  seraph.     All  these  follies 


AS  LAID  DOWN  IN'  THE   NEW  TESTAMENT.  383 

and  enormities,  whether  sustained  by  m^iny  texts,  or  by 
few,  belong  to  darkened  souls,  and  to  a  dark  age. 

The  rule  of  religious  celibacy,  as  found  in  the  New 
Testament,  is,  in  fact,  much  more  clearly  defined  than 
are  some  other  things  which  have  become  the  occasion 
of  serious  errors.  Three  or  four  passages  comprise  all 
that  is  said  on  the  subject  by  our  Lord,  or  the  apostles: 
and,  happil}^  if  any  ambiguity  might  seem  to  attach  la 
the  letter  of  the  rule,  we  may  derive  from  our  Lord's 
personal  behaviour,  and  from  the  practice  of  the  apos- 
tles, such  a  comment  upon  it  as  must  be  amply  suflicient 
for  removing  every  doubt;  at  least,  if  our  own  minds  be 
free  from  factitious  excitements. 

It  is  a  remarkable  circumstance  that,  of  the  four  prin- 
cipal passages,*  relating  to  celibacy,  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, namely,  Matt.  xix.  12,  Luke  xx.  35,  1  Cor.  vii. 
and  Rev.  xiv.  4,  that  one  is  the  most  frequently  referred 
to  by  the  ascetic  writers,  and  is  made  to  bear  the  great- 
est stress,  which,  in  fact,  is  wholly  irrelevant  to  the 
subject — I  mean  our  Lord's  assertion  concerning  the 
angels,  as  reported  by  Luke.  But  it  is  not  difficult  to 
divine  the  motive  of  this  absurd  preference.  Our  Lord's 
doctrine  of  celibacy,  as  given  by  Matthew,  carries  with 
it  a  definite  restriction,  which  pointedly  condemned  the 
general  practice  of  the  church,  and  especially  its  cruel 
usaofe  of  incitini]^  children  to  devote  themselves  to  a 
single  life.  Then,  again,  Paul's  lengthened  disquisition 
on  the  subject  involves  so  many  principles  of  practical 
wisdom,  and  so  much  cool  good  sense,  as  made  it  dan- 
gerous to  insist  very  long,  or  minutely,  upon  the  pas- 

*  To  these  texts  Cyprian,  wJio  musters  forces  on  this  point, 
adds,  Gen.  iii.  16,  Exod.  xix.  15,  and  1  Kings  xxi.  4.  (Testim. 
nb.  iiu  32.) 


384  THE  RULE  OF  RELIGIOUS  CELIBACY, 

sage;  and  then,  as  to  the  phrase  occurring  in  the  Apo- 
calypse, besides  that  the  book  altogether  was  not  uni- 
versally admitted  as  canonical  by  the  early  church,  and 
is  much  less  quoted  by  the  ancient  writers  than  other 
parts  of  the  canon,  the  figurative,  and,  as  it  seems,  the 
true  interpretation  of  the  passage,  as  intending  the  faith- 
ful worshippers  of  God,  uncontaminated  by  idolatry,  was 
not  unknown  to  the  early  expositors. — See  Origen,  torn, 
iv.  p.  3. 

But,  if  only  the  absurdity  involved  in  any  such  ap- 
plication of  our  Lord's  language — Luke  xx.  35 — could 
be  got  over,  then  it  afforded  precisely  the  kind  of  sup- 
port that  was  wanted  in  favour  of  the  notion  of  a  spi- 
ritual aristocracy,  or  class,  answering  to  the  gnostic 
TTviujutwriKot,  and  to  whom  the  epithet  "  terrestrial  an- 
gels," or  seraphs,  might  be  applied.  To  obtain  the  aid 
of  this  passage,  reasoning  such  as  this  was  to  be  resort- 
ed to — The  "  marrying,  and  the  being  given  in  mar- 
riage," is  the  condition  of  our  present  mode  of  exist- 
ence: but  it  is  not  the  condition  of  the  future  life;  there- 
fore— how  sound  the  inference!  those  who,  although 
actually  belonging  to  this  world,  and  not  to  the  next, 
choose  to  renounce  marriage,  become,  in  doing  so,  an- 
gels, and  are  at  once  "  children  of  the  resurrection." 
As  if  we  were  to  say — animal  life  is  sustained  by  ali- 
ment; not  so  the  angelic  life;  therefore,  to  abstain  from 
food,  so  far  as  possible,  is,  in  the  same  degree,  to  make 
oneself  an  angel!  Illusions  so  gross  as  these  could  ne- 
ver have  overcome  the  good  sense  of  the  early  church, 
if  the  broad  road  of  unbounded  absurdity  had  not  first 
been  o])ened  before  it  by  the  gnostic  heresies. 

Our  Lord's  intention,  in  this  instance,  can  hardly  be 
misunderstood;  for,  while  his  main  purpose  was  to  re- 


AS  LAID  DOWN  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.  385 

f^te  the  sadducee,  v/hose  doctrine  strikes  at  the  very  root 
of  religion,  he  tooli  the  occasion,  also,  to  reprobate  those 
gross  conceptions  of  the  future  life,  then  current  among 
the  Jewish  people,  whence  alone  the  hypothetical  ob- 
jection propounded  to  him  could  draw  any  force.  "  Your 
dilemma  supposes  tliat  there  will  be  marrying  and  giving 
in  marriage,  in  lieaven:  absurd  and  grovelling  thought! 
know  that  the  heavenly  society  is  constituted  on  anotlier 
principle:  what  becomes  then  of  your  assumed  diffi- 
culty? The  children  of  the  resurrection  shall  be  as  the 
angels." 

So  much  for  a  passage  of  which  more  use  was  made 
than  of  any  otiier,  in  recommending  the  practice  of  reli- 
gious celibacy!  Precisely  in  the  same  style  of  unscru- 
pulous logic,  were  the  sanguinary  measures  of  the  pa- 
pacy excused  and  recommended — "  Compel  them  to 
come  in  " — *'  1  am  not  come  to  send  peace  on  the  earth, 
but  a  sword" — "  it  is  better  that  one  member  perish," 
(that  one  heretic,  or  a  thousand,  be  burned,)  "  llian  that 
the  whole  body  "  (the  churcji)  be  lost  or  damaged.  Per- 
haps the  surest  indication,  in  the  case  either  of  an  indi- 
vidual or  a  community,  of  abandonment  to  delusion,  is 
that  of  the  habit  of  perversely  interpreting  single  phrases, 
or  insulated  passages  of  scripture,  in  open  contempt  of 
its  spirit  and  tendency.  This  practice,  of  which  the 
pattern  was  set  by  Satan  himself,  has  been  the  constant 
characteristic  of  those  wlio  have  appeared  to  be  "  led 
captive  by  him  at  his  will."  In  its  entire  ascetic  doc- 
trine, as  well  as  iti  many  other  important  points,  one 
can  hardly  think  any  thing  else  than  that  the  Nicene 
church  had  yielded  itself  to  a  strong  delusion,  and  was 
given  over  to  believe  a  lie. 

Our  Lord's  direct  affirmation,  and  his  implied  doc- 
33- 


38G  THE  RULE  OF  RELIGIOUS  CELIBACY, 

trine,  as  stated,  Matt.  xix.  12,  does  really  bear  upon  the 
question  of  religious  celibacy,  and  it  therefore  demands 
to  be  seriously  considered.  Tiie  Jewish  national  belief 
and  feeling  on  the  subject  of  marriage,  which  that  people 
considered  as  a  positive  and  universal  duty,  required,  like 
some  other  rational  prejudices,  to  be  loosened  and  cor- 
rected, in  order  to  make  room  for  a  higher,  and  a  more 
comprelicnsive  religious  system.  Our  Lord  surely  did 
not  intend  to  condemn  or  disparage  personal  cleanliness 
when  he  atHrmed  tliat,  "  to  eat  with  unwashen  hands 
defileth  not  a  man."  What  he  meant  was,  to  bring  in 
a  spiritual  and  genuine  notion  of  purity,  in  the  place  of 
the  national  and  rabbinical  superstition  of  the  Jews.  He 
did  not  mean  either  to  condemn,  or  to  abrogate  the  wor- 
ship of  God  in  the  Jewish  temple,  when  he  affirmed  that 
the  time  was  come  for  establishing  the  worship  of  God 
on  a  broader  and  more  spiritual  basis  than  that  of  the 
Mosaic  institute.  Nor  does  lie,  as  we  may  confidently 
assume,  in  the  present  instance,  intend,  either  to  throw 
discredit  upon  niatiimony,  (which,  here  and  elsewhere, 
lie  honours  by  a  solemn  sanction,)  nor  to  speak  of  celi- 
bacy as  if  it  were  a  holier  and  loftier  condition;  for,  to 
have  done  this  would  have  been  to  have  recognised  that 
very  principle  of  exterior  and  ceremonial  purity,  against 
which  he  so  strenuously,  we  might  say  vehemently,  in- 
veighed, on  various  occasions.  Although,  in  this  parti- 
cular point,  the  national  prejudice  of  the  Jews  stood  op- 
posed to  the  ascetic  doctrine,  yet  the  general  principle 
of  sanctity,  as  attaching  to  visible  observances,  and  of  a 
merit,  as  belonging  to  classes  of  men,  on  the  ground  of 
peculiar  abstinences,  was  altogether  agreeable  to  the  na- 
tural mind,  and  would  have  been  readily  listened  to  by 
the  pharisees. 

Our  Lord  seems  to  have  intended,  after  condemning 


AS  LAID  DOWN  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.  387 

the  lax  and  flagitious  practice  of  divorce,  as  then  preva- 
lent among  the  Jews,  and,  after  giving  the  most  empha- 
tic sanction  to  the  institution  of  marriage,  to  take  the  oc- 
casion, suggested  by  the  query  of  the  disciples — "At 
that  rate  is  it  good  to  marry?'*  for  introducing  a  higher 
motive  of  conduct,  belonging  to  the  "kingdom  of  hea- 
ven," and  Wiiich,  in  opposition  to  the  Jewish  opinion 
and  custom,  might  lead  certain  individuals  (v/ho  are  so 
described  as  to  preclude  a  fanatical  misinterpretation  of 
tlie  rule)  to  separate  themselves  even  from  the  lawful 
engagements  of  ordinary  life,  and  so  the  better  to  pro- 
mote this  kingdom,  in  an  evil  world,  unencumhered  by 
any  earthly  ties.  The  sovereign  motives  of  the  new 
dispensation  were  of  such  force,  that  they  might  lead  a 
man  even  to  lay  down  life  itself  for  Christ,  or  to  sur- 
render property,  and  every  social  endearment;  and,  as  a 
circumstance  attending  this  sort  of  unsparing  devoted- 
ness,  an  abstinence  from  marriage  might  be  not  only  a 
lawful,  but  an  acceptable  sacrifice.  "  Ye  are  not  your 
own,  but  are  bought  with  a  price," — "glorify  God  there- 
fore willi  your  bodies,  and  with  your  spirits,  which  are 
liis," — "  present  your  bodies,  a  living  sacrifice  unto 
God,"  (S:c.  These  several  injunctions,  being  only  va- 
rious consequences,  nil  flowing  from  the  one  supreme 
reason  and  motive  wliich  the  gospel  introduces,  practi- 
cally amount  to  this — be  ready  to  die,  be  ready  to  sufl^er, 
be  ready  to  labour,  be  content,  whether  full  or  empt}^  as 
to  earthly  enjoyments;  and,  in  a  word,  hold  every  thing 
in  subordination  to  the  one  principle  of  Christian  con- 
duct; or,  to  say  all  at  once — "let  the  same  mind  be  in 
you  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus,  who  pleased  not  him- 
self." This  sovereign  rule  of  behaviour  may  make  a 
man  a  martyr,  or  may  induce  him  to  lead  a  single  life, 
or  may  impel  him  to  traverse  the  globe,  having  no  cer- 


388        THE  RULE  OF  RELIGIOUS  CELIBACY, 

tain  dwelling-place — when  the  doing  so  shall  clearly, 
and,  in  the  judgment  of  good  sense,  tend  to  promote 
truth  in  the  world.  But,  on  the  contrary,  the  enthusiast, 
or  the  fanatic,  who,  for  the  mere  purpose — a  selfish  pur- 
pose— of  snatching  the  martyr's  crown,  insults  a  perse- 
cuting power;  or  the  ascetic,  who,  to  no  imaginable  good 
purpose,  inflicts  torture  upon  himself,  or  passes  his 
years,  like  a  wild  beast,  in  a  cavern,  or  who  adheres  to 
celibacy  as  if  it  were  an  angelic  excellence,  and,  in  doing 
so,  puts  contempt  upon  the  divine  appointment — all  such 
persons,  puffed  up  by  the  self-idolizing  conceits  of  an 
inflamed  imagination,  and  of  spiritual  arrogance,  wholly 
misunderstood  the  rule  (as  they  are  plainly  destitute  of 
the  principle)  of  Christian  self-denial.  The  course  pur- 
sued under  any  such  false  impulses  has,  in  fact,  always 
diverged  so  widely  from  the  line  of  Christian  simplicity, 
humility,  and  benevolence,  as  to  make  evident  enough 
the  originating  error  whence  it  resulted. 

In  our  Lord's  rule,  above  referred  to,  there  are  very 
distinctly  to  be  observed,  first,  the  well-defined  and  se- 
riously propounded  restriction — "  All  are  not  able  to  re- 
ceive this  word — i/any  man  is  able  to  receive  it — if,  to 
any  this  ability  has  been  given,  let  such  receive  it;" 
plainly  pointing  to  a  peculiarity  of  original  temperament, 
such  as  that,  having  been  well  ascertained  by  the  indivi- 
dual, he  might  act  upon  it  without  peril  or  presumption. 
How  frightfully  and  cruelly  was  this  restriction  contemn- 
ed by  the  Nicene  writers  and  preachers,  who  not  only  so 
lauded  the  merits  and  honours  of  virginity  as  in  fact  to 
seduce  multitudes — tens  of  thousands,  into  a  snare  fatal 
to  their  present  happiness  and  to  their  souls,  but  more- 
over, laboured  with  the  utmost  intensity  to  promote  the 
flagitious   practice   of  dedication   to   Christ    (miserable 


AS  LAID  DOWN  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.  389 

misnomer)  before  the  age  ofpuperty,  nay,  from  infancy! 
This  practice  was  the  foul  stain  of  the  Nicene  church. 
Even  with  our  Lord's  significant  caution  on  their  lips, 
we  find  the  great  writers  of  that  infatuated  age  provoking 
the  fanaticism  of  parents,  and  aiding  to  drive  troops  of 
helpless  children  and  youths  onward  toward  the  preci- 
pfce,  and  into  that  fiery  abyss  the  horrors  of  which 
themselves  have  described!* 

But  in  the  second  place,  our  Lord's  rule  points  dis- 
tinctly to  a  motive,  which,  after  the  restriction  had  been 
duly  regarded,  might  justify  this  unusual  course  of  life: 
— it  was  for  the  sake  "of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,"  a 
phrase  the  meaning  of  which  is  put  beyond  doubt  by  a 
comparison  of  the  places  where  it  occurs,  ajid  by  a  con- 
sideration of  the  actual  instances  wherein  its  meaning 
was  confessedly  carried  out  into  practice.  Now  if  we 
compare  this  condition  of  the  rule  of  celibacy  with  the 
ascetic  institute,  how  was  it  set  at  naught!  Let  us  ad- 
mit the  most  favourable  supposition  possible,  namely, 
that  the  ascetics  were,  in  the  large  majority  of  instances, 
the  most  devoted  and  spiritually  minded  members  of  the 
Christian  commonwealth;  then,  instead  of  seeking  to 
promote  "  the  kingdom  of  heaven,"  by  remaining  in  the 
midst  of  the  mass,  as  a  conservative'  element,  and  in- 

*  I  have  already,  p.  230,  referred  to  Gregory  Nyssen  and  Au- 
gustine, on  this  point;  and  of  the  style  in  which  this  practice  was 
urged,  a  favourable  specimen  may  be  found  in  Chrysostom's  third 
book,  addressed  to  the  opponents  of  the  monastic  life,  tom.  i.  p. 
92,  et  seq.  It  appears  both  from  Chrysostom  and  Basil,  that  chil- 
dren were  received  into  the  religious  houses,  and  there  trained  in 
the  ascetic  discipline  until  their  deliberate  choice  could  be  ascer- 
tained. Basil,  Reg.  Fusios.  Inter,  xv.  But  this  education,  if  it 
disgusted  many,  must  have  availed  with  too  many  in  inducing 
them  rashly  to  profess,  long  before  they  could  know  what  they 
were  doing. 


390  THE  RULE  OF  RELIGIOUS  CELIBACY, 

Stead  of  endeavouring  to  shed  a  holy  influence  upon  the 
dark  world  around  them,  ihey  either  shut  themselves  up 
in  religious  houses,  located,  most  often,  in  the  wilder- 
ness, or  they  absolutely  secluded  themselves  from  all 
human  society,  passing  long  years  in  the  crevices  of  the 
mountains.  That  is  to  say,  they  acted  upon  a  principle 
of  unmixed  and  avowed  selfishness,  and  in  direct  contra- 
riety to  the  spirit  and  precepts  of  the  gospel;  and  where- 
as Christ  had  set  an  example  to  his  followers,  in  not 
pleasing  himself,  and  in  "going  about  doing  good,"  and 
in  '*  consorting  with  publicans  and  sinners,"  for  their 
good — "  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven's  sake,"  these  as- 
cetics, minding  only  "  their  own  things,"  left  the  church 
and  the  world  to  take  their  course.  And  all  this  fla- 
grant contradiction  of  the  spirit  and  letter  of  Christiani- 
ty received  the  admiring  approval  of  every  one  of  the 
great  Nicene  writers. 

In  the  third  place,  a  material  circumstance,  in  this  in- 
stance, is  the  absolute  want,  in  our  Lord's  language,  of 
any  implication,  ever  so  remote,  of  the  great  ascetic  doc- 
trine— the  spirit  of  the  whole  system,  namely,  that  of 
Ihe  intrinsic  holiness  and  angelic  merit  of  virginity.  No 
alliance  wliatever  has  our  Lord's  practical  recommenda- 
tion with  the  gnostic-Nicene  principle,  that  marriage  is 
a  pollution,  and  celibacy  a  "  holy  state,"  and  a  condi- 
tion of  proximity  to  God.  If  any  such  notion  had  been 
in  our  liord's  view,  was  not  this  the  place  to  have  let  it 
appear?  With  the  ascetics,  if  indeed  any  regard  was 
had  to  the  possible  utility  of  a  single  life,  that  is  to  say, 
its  public  utility,  yet  the  all  in  all  in  their  view  was — 
the  sanctity  of  the  state,  and  its  spiritual,  or  ratiier  ce- 
lestial eminence. 

In  each  of  these  respects,  then,  the  Nicene  ascetic  in- 


AS  LAID  DOWN  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.  391 

stitule  was  a  flagrant  contempt  of  our  Lord's  rule  of 
Christian  celibacy:  that  is  to  say,  first,  as  it  wholly 
overlooked  the  restriction  with  which  he  had  guarded  it; 
secondly,  as  putting  contempt  upon  the  motive  which 
might  justify  the  celibacy  of  the  few  to  whom  it  would 
be  proper;  and  thirdly,  as  bringing  in,  and  putting  fore- 
most, a  motive  or  doctrine  not  merely  foreign  to  Chris- 
tianity, but  subversive  of  its  very  purport. 

The  interpretation  we  should  give  of  our  Lord's  rule, 
may,  however,  be  brought  to  a  very  satisfactory  test, 
that  I  mean  of  his  personal  and  immaculate  behaviour 
(as  well  as  the  conduct  of  the  apostles)  and  this  beha- 
"viour  contrasted  with  the  established  usages  of  the  as- 
cetic life,  looked  at  in  parallel  circumstances.  Be  it  re- 
membered then  that,  whereas  among  the  Jews,  the  mo- 
ral dignity  of  woman,  and  the  religious  equality  of  the 
sexes,  had  been  far  better  understood  than  among  any 
other  people  of  antiquity,  even  the  most  refined,  and 
whereas  rational  and  purifying  domestic  habits,  allowing 
to  woman  her  due  place  in  society,  were  still  in  exis- 
tence in  Palestine,  our  Lord,  in  his  personal  behaviour, 
and  in  a  most  remarkable  manner,  recognised  this  na- 
tional feeling,  and  allowed  himself  to  be  attended,  and 
"  ministered  to,"  by  women,*  and  thus  practically  re- 
cognised, as  good  and  safe,  that  intercourse  of  the  sexes, 
in  domestic  and  common  life,  which  then  prevailed. 
The  first  disciples,  and  the  apostles,  instead  of  drawing 
back  from  this  wonted  liberty,  held  to,  and  sanctioned 
it;t  and  in  fact,  it  has  been  the  glory  of  Christianity, 
wherever  it  has  not  been  overpowered  by  the  gnostic 
poison,  to  have  wrought  the  regeneration  of  the  social 

*  Luke  viii.  1 — 3,  and  Matt,  sxvii.  55. 
t  Acts  i.  14.     Phil.  iv.  3. 


■392  THE  RULE  OF  RELIGIOUS  CELIBACY, 

economy,  precisely  in  this  way,  that  is  to  say,  by  raising 
woman  to  her  moral  level,  and  by  refining  and  sanction- 
ing the  home  intercourse  of  the  sexes.  How  deep  and 
fatal  was  the  injury,  in  this  particular,  done  to  the  world 
by  the  ancient  asceticism,  and  to  what  extent  it  operated 
to  debauch  the  social  system,  we  shall  have  to  state  by 
and  by.  At  present,  let  us  contemplate  the  edifying  con- 
trast of  our  blessed  Lord's  behaviour,  as  compared  with 
that  of  the  heroes  of  gnostic  sanctity — the  Nicene  saints. 
Our  Lord  was  in  some  instances  attended  in  his  jour- 
neys by  women,  his  wants  being  provided  for  by  their 
generous  attachment,  and  his  personal  comfort  secured 
by  their  assiduous  afl'ection.  But  now  no  injunctions  of 
the  ascetic  institute  are  more  frequent  or  serious  than 
those  which  interdict  all  intercourse  between  the  sexes. 
To  frequent  the  society  of  women,  to  converse  with 
them,  to  lift  the  eye  from  llie  earth  where  tliey  were  pre- 
sent, was  an  ofTence,  or  at  least  an  extreme  imprudence. 
The  places  arc  innumerable  in  which  cautions  of  tliis 
sort  occur: — the  touch  of  a  female  hand,  what  contami- 
nation did  it  convey!*     It  may  be  well,  wliile  our  blessed 

*  If  the  extravagances  of  inferior  writers  were  here  cited,  an 
objection  would  be  raised,  as  if  an  unfair  advantage  were  taken 
of  the  folly  of  individuals.  I  will  refer  therefore  to  none  but  the 
highest  authorities.  Among  these  none  is  of  higher  reputation 
than  Basil,  and  the  reader  may,  at  the  cost  of  an  hour's  reading, 
form  his  own  opinion  of  the  Nicene  monkery  as  to  its  jjriticijjlcs 
and  rules,  in  examining  the  ascetic  tracts  of  this  father;  1  mean 
especially  his  replies  to  the  queries  of  the  monks,  and  his  Mo- 
nastic Constitutions,  to  which  I  shall  make  some  particular  re- 
ferences in  the  following  sections.  Ephrem  also,  and  Cassian, 
must  be  cited  in  proof  of  what  is  here  only  incidentally  affirmed^ 
namely,  that  the  ascetic  sanctity  demanded  restrictions,  in  per- 
sonal behaviour,  which  were  never  thought  of  by  the  apostles, 
whom  we  must  believe  to  have  been  not  less  holy  than  tliese' 
monks- 


AS  LAID  DOWN  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.  393 

Lord's  conduct  is  vividly  recollected,  to  take  a  single  in- 
stance of  a  mode  of  behaviour,  in  one  of  the  most  pro- 
minent personages  of  llie  Nicene  age,  which  imbodies 
the  admitted  principles  of  Nicene  feeling  and  morality, 
both  as  to  clerical  pretensions,  and  to  ascetic  purity. 
When  we  see  a  "successor  of  the  apostles,"  in  the 
fourth  century,  admitting  an  adulation  and  a  personal 
worship  which  the  apostles  themselves  would  not  have 
allowed — and  at  the  same  time  pretending  to  a  sanctity 
which  the  Son  of  God  knew  nothing  of,  we  must  either 
grant,  what  is  now  affirmed,  by  some,  that  the  Christi- 
anity of  the  Nicene  age  was  indeed  a  purer  and  a  more 
finished  form  of  our  religion  than  that  which  Christ  and 
the  apostles  were  acquainted  with;  or  else  allow  that  the 
striking  contrariety  that  distinguishes  the  two  schemes 
of  piety  and  manners,  is  that  which  properly  character- 
ises, on  the  one  side,  true  holiness,  simplicity,  and  truth; 
and  on  the  other,  factitious  sanctimoniousness,  unbound- 
ed spiritual  arrogance,  and  a  falseness,  which  was  the 
product  either  of  delusion,  or  of  knavery,  or  of  both. 
Let  the  reader  bear  in  mind  those  various  incidents  of 
the  gospel  narrative  which  exhibit  our  Lord's  behaviour 
toward  his  female  followers;  and  then  turn  to  the  life 
of  Saint  Martin  of  Tours,  as  reported  by  his  admirer  and 
disciple,  Sulpitius  Severus.  (Sulpit.  Sev.  Dial.  IL  c.  5,  6.) 
This  famous  St.  Martin,  "justly  compared  with  the 
apostles  and  prophets,  whom  in  all  things  he  resembled, 
in  faith,  virtue,  and  miraculous  power,"  had  occasion, 
soon  after  his  consecration,  to  visit  the  imperial  palace. 
Valentinian,  knov^ing  that  he  was  come  to  ask  for  that 
which  he  did  not  wish  to  grant,  ordered  him  to  be  dri- 
ven from  the  gate — instigated  to  this  irreverence  by  his 
wife.     The   insulted  bishop  forthwith  had  recourse  to 

34 


394       THE  RULE  OF  RELIGIOUS  CELIBACY, 

the  wonted  aids  of  fasting,  sackcloth,  aslies,  and  prayers; 
and  at  the  end  of  a  week  an   angel  appeared  to  him, 
commanding  him  lo  repeat  his  attempt  to  see  the  empe- 
ror, and  assuring  him  that  every  obstacle  should  now  give 
way  before  him.     In  fact,  neither  doors,  nor  guards,  ob- 
structed  his  approach  to  the  royal  apartments.     The 
emperor,  however,  enraged  at  his  unbidden  intrusion, 
does  not  deign  to  rise  at  his  entrance  (a  reverence  due 
by  an  emperor  to  a  bishop)   until  the  throne  itself  had 
burst  out  in  flames — ipsumque  regem  ea  parte   corpo- 
ris,   qua    sedebat,  adflaret  incendium!      The   haughty 
prince,  thus  unwillingly  driven  from  his  seat,  rose,  to 
St.  Martin;  and  moreover,  being  convinced  and  won  by 
this  same  fervid  logic,  he  granted  all  that  was  demanded; 
and  from  that  time  loaded  St.  Martin  with  honours.  The 
mention  of  the  palace,  leads  the  narrator  to  introduce 
another  incident,  characteristic  of  his  master's  virtues 
and  manners.     The  wife  of  the  emperor  Maximus  was 
accustomed  to  listen  with  the  utmost  reverence  to  the 
conversation  of  the  saint,  and  following  the  evangelic 
example,  she  washed  his  feet  with  her  tears,  and  wiped 
them  with  her  hair.     Martin,  whom  never  before  a  wo- 
man had  touched,  knew  not  how  to  escape  from  the  as- 
siduous attentions,  nay  rather,  the  servile  offices  of  the 
empress,  who,  in  comparison  with  the  honour  of  ren- 
dering such  services  to  such  a  saint,  held  in  contempt 
all  princely  pomps,  power,  and  wealth.     In  the  end  she 
prepared  his  repast,  waited  upon  him  at  table,  and  ga- 
thering the  crumbs,  esteemed  them  as  more  delicious 
than  the  dainties  of  a  royal  banquet. 

The  narrator  Is  however  here  stopped  by  his  friend, 
with  the  startling  inquiry.  How  it  could  be,  that  so  emi- 
nent a  saint,  whose  sacred  person  a  female  hand  had 
never  before  contaminated,  could  admit  so  great  a  free- 


AS  LAID  DOWN  IX  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.  395 

dom  on  the  part  of  the  empress:  and  he  fears  what  may- 
be the  consequence,  upon  some  minds,  of  such  an  in- 
stance of  condescension.  To  this  it  is  replied  that  the 
singularity  of  the  occasion,  and  the  saint's  benevolent 
errand  at  that  lime,  seemed  sufficiently  to  justify  his  re- 
laxing a  little  the  severity  of  his  rule;  and  well  were  it 
for  those  who  might  be  likely  to  make  an  improper  use 
of  his  example,  in  this  instance,  if  they  could  so  con- 
sider it  as  to  be  confirmed  in  their  adherence  to  the  as- 
cetic discipline.  Let  such  consider  the  case — once  in 
his  life  only,  and  he  already  in  his  seventieth  year,  had 
any  such  thing  happened! — Consider  too,  it  was  no  wi- 
dow to  whom  he  granted  this  indulgence,  nor  virgo  las- 
civiens;  but  a  wife,  in  the  presence  of  her  husband,  and 
at  his  request; — an  empress  too,  performing  these  of- 
fices: nor  did  even  she  dare  to  partake  with  him  of  his 
repast!  Take  the  instance  as  it  is — such  an  occasion — 
such  a  person,  such  a  reverence,  such  a  table — and  in 
the  whole  course  of  life — once  only! 

Now  what  is  all  this  but  insufferable  spiritual  prudery — 
arrogance — hypocrisy,  or  much  worse?  Yet  it  is  the 
characteristic  style  of  the  Nicene  age.  The  writer, 
Sulpitius,  more  than  once  impiously  sets  his  saint  by 
the  side  of  Christ,  as  if  the  two  characters  might  be 
compared  on  some  ground  of  analogy;  in  fact,  they 
stand  in  absolute  contrast,  and  not  to  have  seen  and  felt 
this  contrariety,  was  itself  an  effect  of  that  universal  de- 
lusion and  thick  darkness,  which  had  then  surrounded 
the  church.  This  however  is  manifest  enough,  that  our 
Lord's  rule  of  celibacy  neither  implied,  nor  resulted 
from,  any  such  notion  of  sanctity  as  that  which  consti- 
tuted the  principle  of  the  ascetic  system. 

Biblical  exposition  I  do  not  profess:  nevertheless  an 
historical  inquiry  concerning  a  perverted  use  of  scrip- 


396  THE  RULE  OF  RELIGIOUS  CELIBACY, 

ture,  in  any  important  particular,  almost  unavoidably 
implies  the  making  some  reference  to  the  plain  import 
of  such  passages.  The  seventh  chapter  of  Paul's  first 
epistle  to  the  Corinthians  demands  in  fact  some  careful 
criticism,  as  well  historical  as  biblical;  but  I  attempt,  in 
this  place,  only  what  seems  indispensable  in  reference 
to  my  particular  argument. 

The  essential  diflerence  between  apostolic  and  Nicene 
Christianity  presents  itself  very  prominently  in  com- 
paring the  latter  verses  of  the  sixth  chapter,  with  the  as- 
cetic doctrine,  of  which  some  samples  have  already 
been  produced.  "  What,  know  ye  not,"  asks  the  apos- 
tle, "  that  your  body  is  the  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost?" 
or,  as  in  the  third  chapter,  "  Know  ye  not  that  ye  are 
the  temple  of  God?  ...  if  any  man  defile  the  temple  of 
God  "  .  .  .  .  This  serious  truth  he  employs  in  no  other 
manner  than  as  a  most  powerful  dissuasive  from  sinful 
indulgences,  such  as  those  specified  in  the  context;  and 
it  is  clear  that,  in  his  view,  Christians  living  unblama- 
bly  under  the  conjugal  relationship,  fulfilled  the  inten- 
tion of  his  injunctions:  in  abstaining  from  the  works  of 
the  flesh,  as  enumerated  Gal.  v.  19,  and  in  cherishing 
the  fruits  of  the  Spirit,  the  Christian  law  was  satisfied. 
But  not  so  with  the  ascetics — I  mean  the  train  of  wri- 
ters, now  extant,  from  Tertullian  to  St.  Bernard.  The 
body  of  a  Christian  is  the  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
say  these  divines,  therefore — no  part  of  it,  not  ordinari- 
ly exposed,  must  ever  be  seen  by  another  eye,  and 
therefore^  none  but  the  simplest  and  purest  substances, 
and  those  in  the  smallest  possible  quantities,  are  to  be 
admitted  into  the  stomach,  and  therefore  the  grossest 
of  all  terrestrial  contaminations,  that  of  the  matrimonial 
connexion,  is  to  be  utterly  avoided  by  whoever  would 
be  holy  indeed! 


AS  LAID  DOWN  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.  397 

Here  then  we  have  before  us,  most  distinctly  ex- 
pressed, two  doctrines  of  holiness,  derived  professedly 
from  the  same  truth,  namely,  the  indwelling  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  but  involving  totally  different  principles,  and 
leading  to  different  practices.  Nor  is  the  mere  difference 
all  we  have  to  notice,  for,  as  the  ascetic  doctrine  as- 
sumed to  itself  a  higher  credit  than  the  apostolic,  and 
was  spoken  of  as  "  a  more  excellent  way;"  or  was,  to 
use  the  phrase  current  in  the  Nicene  age,  "  a  merit  be- 
yond law,"  its  effect  was  to  dislodge,  or  we  should  say 
to  dethrone,  the  apostolic  principle  of  morals.  The  apos- 
tle tells  you  to  be  holy  in  abstaining  from  vice,  but  we 
speak  to  you  of  a  loftier  and  a  more  genuine  holiness; — . 
and  if  ye  aspire  to  perfection,  listen  to  us,  not  to  him! 

The  commendation  of  virginity,  re-echoed  from  all 
sides  within  the  Nicene  church,  that  it  was  "  a  merit 
beyond  law,"  is  alone  enough  to  exhibit  the  opposition 
between  the  two  systems.  Neither  in  this  passage  of  the 
epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  nor  any  where  else  in  the 
New  Testament,  is  there  to  be  discovered  the  remotest 
trace  of  the  doctrine  that  celibacy  is  "  a  merit,"  or  that 
it  is  a  holier  condition,  or  that  matrimony  is,  in  any 
sense  whatever,  a  spiritual  degradation,  or  a  pollution. 
This  is  the  very  point  of  distinction  between  the  poi- 
sonous illusion  of  the  ascetic  system,  and  the  simple 
rule  of  religious  celibacy,  as  found  in  scripture.  Among 
those  who  devote  themselves  to  the  work  of  the  Lord, 
and  especially  to  itinerant  labours,  or  perilous  missions 
to  the  heathen,  it  is  very  plain  that  a  man  who  has  three 
children  only,  must  feel  himself  less  obstructed  in  his 
course  than  one  who  has  twelve;  and  so  he  who,  al- 
though married,  has  no  children,  may  advantageously 
meet  difficulties  which  the  father  even  of  two  or  three 
might  do  better  not  to  encounter.  Clearly  then,  the  un- 
34* 


398  THE  RULE  or  RELIGIOUS  CELIBACY, 

married,  supposing  always  that  they  have  not  misinter- 
preted their  p 67' so nal  calling,  have  an  advantage,  which, 
if  wisely  employed,  may  far  more  than  compensate  to 
them  what  they  have  relinquished.  All  this  is  intelligi- 
ble enough;  and  the  reasons  and  motives  which  such  a 
doctrine  involves  are  manifestly  enhanced  in  those  sea- 
sons of  trial  to  the  churcli  when  severe  privations  are 
to  be  submitted  to  by  Christians.  It  was,  in  our  Lord's 
view,  to  be  esteemed  a  favour  when  the  storm  of  public 
calamity  fell  upon  a  community  during  the  summer,  ra- 
ther than  the  winter,  and,  at  such  a  time,  those  were  to 
be  accounted  comparatively  happy  who  were  not  "  with 
child,"  or  "  giving  suck."     What  can  be  more  simple? 

And  now,  let  reasonable  men  say  whether  such  is  not 
the  general  purport  of  the  seventh  chapter  of  the  epis- 
tle before  us:  or,  in  other  words,  let  it  be  asked  wliether 
this  chapter  tearl^cs  llie  ascetic  principle  of  the  higher 
sanctity  of  virginity,  as  if  it  were,  in  the  Lord's  sight, 
an  excellence,  placing  those  who  adhere  to  it  on  a  level 
above  that  of  the  married,  and  so  much  the  nearer  to  the 
divine  nature.  The  apostle's  disquisition  on  this  subject 
is  long  enough,  and  it  is  sufficiently  precise  to  have  in- 
cluded the  statement  of  some  such  principle,  if,  indeed, 
he  had  held  it:  but  instead  of  advancing  the  ascetic  doc- 
trine, and  at  the  very  turn  of  his  argument,  ver.  25, 
when  he  declares  that  the  Lord  had  enjoined  nothing  on 
the  subject,  and  when  it  would  have  been  so  fit  an  occa- 
sion for  insinuating  tlie  "higher  philosophy,"  he  reverts 
to  the  temporary  and  special  reason  which  might  recom- 
mend celibacy — "  I  suppose  that  this  is  good  for  the  pre- 
sent distress,"  for  a  man,  if  unmarried,  "  not  to  seek  a 
wife." 

If  then  we  come  to  ask,  at  ver.  S8,  what  is  meant  by 
*'  doing  better,"  we  have  only  to  look  back  to  the  rea- 


AS  LAID  DOWN  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.  399 

sons  which  the  apostle  had  ah-eady  advanced,  and  which 
involve  nothing  beyond  the  practical  advantages  or  im- 
munities of  a  single  life,  in  relation,  either  to  seasons  of 
persecution,  or  to  extraordinary  labours  of  evangelic  zeal, 
or  to  any  circumstances  under  which  a  Christian  (per- 
sonal temperament  being  considered)  might  think  him- 
self, or  herself,  free  to  use  the  privilege  of  "  waiting 
upon  the  Lord  without  distraction."  "  I  would  that  ye 
should  be  without  carefulness" — exempt  from  distract- 
ing anxieties:  this  is  the  unambitious  motto  of  the  entire 
chapter;  and  it  is  here  highly  curious  to  observe,  that, 
while  the  ascetics  of  the  Nicene  age  substituted,  for  so 
homely  and  reasonable  a  principle,  the  lofty  doctrine  of 
seraphic  virginity,  they  did,  in  their  actual  practice,  in- 
volve themselves  in  all  the  cares  of  married  life,  and  in 
%vorse.  Let  us  take  Chrysostom's  description  of  "  a 
holy  monk's"  manifold  solicitudes.  Paul  says  nothing 
about  a  single  man's  being,  on  that  account,  as  holy  as 
Gabriel;  but  he  does  say,  that  those  who  would  please 
the  Lord,  might,  in  certain  cases,  do  well  not  to  marry. 
Be  it  remembered,  that,  in  every  instance  of  a  compari- 
son, such  as  the  one  now  before  us,  we  have  the  ques- 
tion at  issue  always  in  view,  whetlier  apostolic  and  an- 
cient Christianity  be  one  and  the  same,  or,  opposed,  and 
contradictory. 

The  custom  against  which  Cyprian  had  inveighed,  as 
we  have  seen,  in  the  third  century,  at  Carthage,  was  no 
incidental  or  local  abuse;  for  it  had  spread  itself  on  all 
sides,  and,  in  the  time  with  v/hich  we  have  now  to  doj 
it  had  become,  notwithstanding  all  remonstrances,  the 
usage  of  the  coenobite  ascetics,  and  even  of  some  of  the 
anchorets.  Not  only  did  the  aged  monks  avail  them- 
selves of  the  ofSces,  and  enjoy  the  society  of  young  wo- 
men in  their  cloisters,  but  young  monks  also  did  the 


400  THE  RULE  OF  RELlGIOUvS  CELIBACY, 

«ame,  in  defiance  of  the  scandals  that  could  not  but  arise 
from  so  indiscreet  a  practice,  (Chrysost.  torn.  i.  p.  279:) 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  young  nuns  entertained  a  cor- 
tege of"  philosophic"  paramours,  nnder  various  pretexts. 
(pp.  310,  312,  et  seq.)  What  a  sight  is  it,  says  Chrysos- 
tom,  to  enter  the  cell  of  a  solitary  monk,  and  to  see  the 
apartment  hung  about  with  female  gear,  shoes,  girdles,  re- 
ticules, caps,  bonnets,  spindles,  combs,  and  the  like,  too 
many  to  mention;  but  what  a  jest  is  it  to  visit  the  abode  of  a 
rich  monk,  and  to  look  about  you.;  for  you  find  the  soli- 
tary fj^^voz,  surrounded  with  a  bevy  of  lasses,  one  might 
say,  just  like  the  leader  of  a  company  of  singing  and 
dancing  girls;  what  can  be  more  disgraceful!  and,  in 
fact,  the  monk  is  all  day  long  vexed  and  busied  with 
petty  affairs  proper  to  a  woman  ....  not  merely  is  he 
occupied  with  worldly  matters,  contrary  to  the  apostolic 
precept,  but  even  with  feminine  cares;  and  these  ladies, 
being  very  luxurious  in  their  habits,  as  well  as  imperi- 
ous in  their  tempers,  the  good  man  was  liable  to  be  sent 
on  fifty  errands — to  the  silversmith's,  to  inquire  if  my 
lady's  mirror  was  finished,  if  her  vase  was  ready,  if  her 
scent-cruet  had  been  returned:  and  from  the  silversmith's 
to  the  perfumer's,  and  thence  to  the  lincndraper's,  and 
thence  to  the  upholsterer's;  and  at  each  place  he  has  twen- 
ty particulars  to  remember.  Then  add  to  all  these  cares, 
the  jars  and  scoldings  that  are  api  to  resound  in  a  house 
full  of  pampered  women!  Paul  says,  Be  ye  not  the  ser- 
vants of  men;  shall  we  not  then  cease  to  be  the  slaves 
of  women,  and  this  to  the  common  injury  of  all? 
Christ,  who  would  have  us  behave  ourselves  as  his  va- 
liant soldiers,  assuredly  has  not  for  this  purpose  clad 
us  in  the  spiritual  armour,  that  we  should  take  upon  our- 
selves the  office  of  wniting,  like  menials,  upon  worthless 


AS  LAID  DOWN  IN  THE   NEW  TESTAMENT.  401 

girls,  Kopcev  Tpio^iKtfAcitm,  or  that  we  should  busy  ourselves 
with  their  spinnings  and  sewings,  or  spend  the  live-long 
day  by  their  side,  while  at  work,  imbuing  our  minds 
with  effeminate  trifles!"  (Abridged  from  pp.  295,  296, 
297.) 

So  egregious  and  ridiculous  are  the  inconsistencies  into 
which  those  are  sure  to  fall,  who,  not  content  with  re- 
ligion and  morality,  such  as  God  has  given  them  to  us, 
must  frame  to  themselves  something  loftier. — What  that 
loftier  profession  actually  comes  to,  we  may  learn  (to  go 
no  farther)  from  Chrysostom's  two  tracts,  above  cited; 
and  let  the  reader  who  peruses  them  throughout,  say 
whether  we  do  not  deal  leniently  with  the  Nicene  asce- 
ticism in  speaking  of  it  only  as  trivial  and  absurd.  And 
after  such  a  perusal,  and  after  turning  to  those  many  pas- 
sages, in  the  same  writer,  in  which  the  powers  of  lan- 
guage are  taxed  to  make  up  the  encomium  of  celibacy, 
let  him  open  again  Paul's  epistle  to  the  Corinthians, 
and  say — in  conscience,  whether  an  utter  contrariety  of 
feeling  and  of  principle  does  not  distinguish  the  two 
writers.  Let  it  be  particularly  observed  that  the  apostle 
not  only  does  not  assume  any  peculiar  sanctity  to  attach 
to  a  single  life,  implying  a  correlative  pollution  as  belong- 
ing to  the  marriage  state;  but  he  attributes  such  an  honour, 
or  recommendation,  to  this  state  (whatever  his  language 
may  precisely  mean)  as  that,  even  when  impaired  by 
the  heathenism  of  one  of  the  parties,  it  still  conferred  an 
ecclesiastical  prerogative  or  benefit  upon  the  other,  so  as 
to  secure  church  privileges  for  the  offspring  (ver.  14.) 

The  expressions  occurring  in  the  fourteenth  -'Chapter 
of  the  Revelation  (ver.  4,)  although  often  alluded  to  h^ 
the  ascetic  writers,  were  not,  for  the  reasons  that  have 
been  already  mentioned,  so  much  insisted  upon  as  might 
have  been  supposed;  and  at  present  there  are  few,  I  be- 


402  THE  RULE  OF  RELIGIOUS  CELIBACY, 

lieve,  who  would  admit  that  the  passage  has  any  bearing 
whatever  upon  the  subject  of  celibacy.  The  well  under- 
stood and  ancient  import  of  the  phrases  in  question, 
when  employed  prophetically  and  symbolically,  as  in- 
tending purity  of  faith,  opposed  to  idolatrous  (adulte- 
rous) compliances  and  corruptions,  accords  entirely  with 
the  obvious  meaning  of  the  context.  The  subjugation  of 
Christendom,  generally,  to  an  adulterous,  that  is,  an  idola- 
trous power,  arrogating  to  itself  divine  honours,  having 
been  predicted,  the  scene  is  suddenly  brightened  by  the 
vision  of  the  Lamb,  with  his  select  company  of  the  faith- 
ful, who,  through  all  vicissitudes  of  their  earthly  war- 
fare and  pilgrimage,  adiiere  to  their  holy  profession,  fol- 
lowing him  "  whithersoever  he  goeth."  To  this  vision 
succeeds  the  fall  and  punishment  of  the  idolatrous  ad- 
herents of  the  blasphemous  and  apostate  usurpation. 

True  Christians,  without  any  regard  to  the  unimpor- 
tant circumstance  of  their  being  single  or  married,  are 
called,  by  the  apostle  James  (i.  18)  a  "first-fruit," 
ATTOifx^  unto  God,  and  in  this  place  of  the  apocalypse, 
also,  ihefaitlful,  as  distinguished  from  the  false — those 
in  whose  mouth  no  lie  [-^ivJcc,  not  Sihoc,M  the  reading) 
was  found,  are  called  a^Titp;^^,  "a  first-fruit"  unto  God 
and  the  Lamb;  and  they  are  said  to  be  (not  cttp^c^oi,  which 
was  the  ecclesiastical  term  technically  and  ordinarily  ap- 
plied to  the  Tru^divci,  but)  ujuaijuot,  unblamable;  not  abso- 
lutely so  indeed;  but  in  respect  of  their  adherence  to  the 
true  worship  of  God.  Plirases,  all  of  them  turning 
upon  the  same  symbolic  metonymy  recur  in  every  part 
of  this  prophecy.  Does  any  one  imagine  that  the  flagi- 
tious woman  who  had  debauched  the  earth  with  her  for- 
nications, and  seduced  kings,  means  nothing  more  than 
a  personification  of  licentiousness,  in  the  literal  sense  of 
the  term?     No  such  interpretation  has  ever  been  main- 


AS  LAID  DOWN  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.  403 

tained  by  rational  expositors: — the  scarlet  clad  woman, 
shameless,  and  cruel,  and  arrogant,  and  the  inveterate 
enemy  of  the  saints,  is  an  adulteress  in  the  ecclesiastical 
and  symbolic  sense  of  the  word,  and  whatever  actual 
profligacy  may  always  have  attended  idolatrous  super- 
stitions, it  is  not  the  profligacy,  but  the  idolatry,  that  is 
mainly  intended  by  the  prophetic  style.  The  correla- 
tive, or  antithetic  import  then  of  the  phrases  by  which 
the  holy  and  antagonist  company  are  designated — the 
"  true  and  faithful,"  the  "  followers  of  the  Lamb,"  can- 
not be  misunderstood.  These  Trcip^ivoi,  who  are  they, 
but  those  that  have  refused  to  drink  of  the  wine  of  her 
fornications,  who  had  corrupted  the  nations?  If  these 
terms  are  to  be  understood  in  tlieir  literal  sense,  so  must 
other  terms  with  which  they  are  connected,  and  then 
the  endeavour  to  expound  th.c  book  in  any  portion  of  it 
must  be  hopeless. 

But  if  th.ere  were  room  to  entertain,  for  a  moment,  the 
supposition  of  a  literal  meaning  in  this  place,  then  one 
could  not  but  look  to  its  bearing  upon  the  general  tenor 
of  church  history,  or  the  outline  of  facts  connected  with 
the  extant  records  of  the  ascetic  institute.  Let  us  then 
assume  with  St.  Bernard  (vol.  ii.  p.  471)  that,  by  this  vir- 
gin company  is  actually  meant "  the  virgins  of  the  church," 
who  are  to  enjoy  an  honour  which  is  not  to  be  shared 
by  those,  however  eminent,  qui  non  sunt  virgines,  quam- 
vis  tamen  sint  Chrisli.  In  the  first  place  then,  such  an 
interpretation  excludes  from  the  privileged  choir  several 
of  the  apostles — probably  all  but  one  or  two  of  them, 
and  with  them,  very  many  of  the  holiest  men  and  wo- 
men of  every  age.  As  to  the  worthies  of  our  own 
times — the  truly  great  and  wise  of  the  protestant  churches, 
it  is  but  a  few  that  would  not  be  excluded  by  this  inter- 
pretation.    On  the  other  hand,  what  has  been  the  gene- 


404  THE  RULE  OF  RELIGIOUS  CELIBACY, 

ral  moral  condition  of  those  whom  it  must  include?  As- 
suredly it  is  with  the  broad  characteristics  of  the  com- 
munities or  classes  which  it  designates,  that  prophecy- 
has  to  do;  now  a  man  must  be  resolute  indeed  in  his 
credulity,  who  can  actually  look  into  the  extant  evidence, 
and  still  persuade  himself  that  genuine  purity  of  mind 
and  manners,  or  that  any  eminent  Christian  qualities 
have  generally  belonged  to  the  monastic  orders.  Take 
this  evidence  wlience  we  please,  from  Cyprian  down  to 
St.  Bernard;  or  look  no  farther  than  to  the  partial  testi- 
mony, and  the  reluctant  admissions  of  Chrysostom,*  and 
Jerome,  and  it  will  be  impossible  to  doubt  that,  while  a 
few  were  virtuous  and  sincere,  and  at  the  same  time  fa- 
natical and  extravagant,  there  prevailed  among  the  many 
the  worst  kinds  of  immorality: — that  is  to  say,  either 
shameless  vices,  or  a  pravity  of  the  heart  that  was  at 
once  pitiable  and  loathsome.  And  yet  it  is  from  the 
bosom  of  a  community  such  as  this,  that  the  Lord  (if 
this  interpretation  is  adopted)  selects  his  peculiar  favou- 
rites! and  of  these  (ecclesiastical)  virgins  it  is  declared 
that  ihcy  were  "blameless,"  and  that  nothing  "/«/5c" 
was  found  in  their  mouth!     How  miserably  are  any  such 

*■  "  Alas,  my  soul!  well  may  I  so  exclaim,  and  repeat  the  la- 
mentable cry,  with  the  prophet!  Alas,  my  soul.  Our  virginity 
has  fallen  into  contempt: — the  vail  is  rent  by  impudent  hands, 
that  parted  it  off  from  matrimony:  the  holy  of  holies  is  trodden 
under  foot,  and  its  grave  and  tremendous  sanctities  have  become 
profane,  and  thrown  open  to  all;  and  that  which  once  was  had  in 
reverence,  as  far  more  excellent  than  matrimony,  is  now  sunk  so 
low,  as  that  one  should  rather  call  the  married  blessed,  than  those 
who  profess  it. — Nor  is  it  the  enemy  that  has  effected  all  this; 
but  the  virgins  themselves!" — Chrysostom,  tom.  i.  p.  304.  Such 
is  the  confession  of  the  warmest  admirer  of  the  ascetic  life — and 
such,  if  we  may  trust  him,  had  it  become  in  his  times.  Jerome's 
testimony  to  the  same  effect,  \\\\\  be  referred  to  presently. 


AS  LAID  DOWxN'  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.  405 

designations  contradicted  by  the  ordinary  characteristics 
of  the  ascetic  records!  Read  the  "  Lives  of  the  Saints  " 
— read  the  Lausaic  history,  and  what  presents  itself  on 
every  page  but  the  details  of  self-deception  and  knavery? 
What,  but  a  digested  system  of  vain  pretensions,  and 
profitable  frauds,  or,  in  a  word — Lies,  either  in  the  sense 
of  delusions,  or  in  the  sense  of  wilful  falsifications? 
Take  the  very  choicest  specimens  of  Nicene  monkery 
(to  some  of  which  I  have  already  alluded,)  such,  for  in- 
stance, as  the  life  of  St.  Antony,  or  that  of  St.  Ililarion, 
by  Jerome,  or  that  of  St.  JMartin  of  Tours,  and  then  let 
any  one  who  retains  his  hold  of  common  sense,  deter- 
mine whether  these  narratives  are  distinguished  most 
by  the  spirit  of  holy  simplicity,  modesty,  and  Truth; 
or  of  wonder-loving  extravagance,  delusion,  and  Lying? 
I  ask  pointedly  for  a  conscientious  reply  to  this  definite 
question.  In  taking  instances  such  as  these,  we  give 
the  ascetic  system  the  greatest  advantage  possible;  that 
is  to  say,  we  leave  untouched  the  heap  of  abominations, 
and  we  adduce  the  very  brightest  instances,  from  what 
is  spoken  of  as  "  the  golden  age"  of  the  monastic  sys- 
tem. Few  protestants,  surely,  vi^ill  be  so  courageous  as 
first  to  adopt  the  literal  interpretation  of  the  passage  in 
question,  and  then  to  appeal  to  church  history,  and  tlie 
monkish  legends  in  support  of  such  an  exposition!  The 
real  meaning  of  the  phrases,  surrounded  as  they  are  by 
symbolic  language,  drawn  from  the  same  analogy,  and 
concerning  which  there  can  be  no  doubt,  will  not,  I 
think,  be  questioned  by  any  but  those  who  can  spare 
nothing  that  may  give  a  seeming  support  to  a  groundless- 
doctrine. 


35 


406  THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC  APOSTACY, 


THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC  APOSTACY. 

There  is  however  yet  a  passage,  and  it  is  a  signal 
one,  which  demands  to  be  adverted  to  in  connexion  with 
our  present  subject.  I  mean  Paul's  plain  prediction  of 
the  approacliing  apostacy  (I  Tim.  iv.)  But  here  again 
we  are  met  by  that  protestant  habit  of  thinking,  which 
has,  in  so  many  instances,  impelled  the  anxious  oppo- 
nents of  the  papacy  to  attribute  specifically  to  the  Romish 
church,  what,  in  truth,  belongs  to  it  only  in  common 
M'ith  the  eastern,  and  with  the  Nicene  church.  Now, 
for  example,  not  a  phrase  occurs  in  this  most  remarka- 
ble prediction — a  prediction  announced  as  "explicit," 
not  symbolical,  which  can  equitably  be  applied  to  the 
papacy^  as  distinguished  from  the  church  catholic,  east- 
ern and  western,  of  the  Nicene  age:  each  characteristic 
of  the  "apostacy,"  as  here  specified,  must  have  been 
admitted  to  have  had  its  accomplishment  in  the  ecclesi- 
astical system  of  the  fourth  century,  even  if  no  such 
despotism  as  that  of  Rome  had  afterwards  come  into 
existence.  It  is  otherwise  with  the  mystic  and  diflicult 
prophecy  recorded  in  the  second  epistle  to  the  Thessa- 
lonians;  this  latter  having  a  more  determinate  and  hie- 
rarchical import,  while  the  one  now  in  question  has  a 
wider  meaning,  and  has  respect  rather  to  the  moral 
qualities  of  the  predicted  defection. 

Let  us  only  imagine  that  the  church  universal  had 
been  brought  back  to  apostolic  purity  in  the  sixth  or 
seventh  century,  and  that  thenceforward,  and  to  the  pre- 
sent time,  it  had  retained  its  integrity:  how  should  we, 
in  that  case,  have  applied  this  prediction?  Clearly,  and 
without  a  doubt,  to  the  ascetic  doctrine,  and  to  the  mo- 


THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC  APOSTACY.  407 

naslic  institute  of  the  preceding  four  centuries.  Each 
prophetic  mark  is  actually  found  upon  that  system;  nor 
is  there  any  other  Christian  system,  or  sect,  or  institute, 
in  any  age  or  country,  that  has  borne  them.  The  pro- 
phecy having  been  issued  under  this  very  condition  of 
its  being  a  plain  and  literal  description,  we  find  it  to 
have  been  literally  realized  within  the  church,  and  to 
have  presented  itself,  with  singular  uniformity  as  to  its 
characteristics,  in  every  section  of  the  church:  and  this 
well-defined  error  is  termed  an  Apostacy,  involving  the 
church  which  harboured,  sanctioned,  and  idolized  it,  in 
the  most  serious  reprobation. 

Those  who  choose  to  do  so,  may  amuse  their  leisure, 
with  a  dozen  ingenious  methods  for  evading  the  appli- 
cation of  this  remarkable  prophecy;  but  no  such  subter- 
fuges will  satisfy  unsophisticated  minds,  and  it  is  to  such 
that  the  prediction  is  immediately  addressed.  Is  it  not 
a  Daniel  that  is  appealed  to  on  this  occasion?  for  there 
are  no  dark  symbols  to  be  interpreted,  there  is  no  my- 
thos  to  be  unfolded.  The  Spirit  speaketh,  p»Ta?,  as  the 
Lord  himself  had  done  when  he  foretold  the  manner  of 
his  own  death  and  the  time  of  his  resurrection.  Pro- 
phecy, when  delivered  in  this  style,  differs  from  history 
only  in  the  brevity  of  its  descriptions,  and  in  the  mere 
circumstance  of  its  preceding  the  event.  And  if,  in 
such  an  instance,  a  real  ambiguity,  or  a  confessed  diffi- 
culty is  found  to  attend  the  application  of  the  prediction, 
our  alternative  must  be  either  the  conclusion  in  which 
infidelity  would  triumph,  or  the  strange  supposition  that 
the  church  was  thus  explicitly  forewarned  of  a  danger 
•which  it  was  not  to  encounter  until  the  remotest  period 
of  its  history. 

But  how  stands  the  prediction  when  it  comes  to  be 
placed  by  the  side  of  the  church  history  of  the  first  five 
centuries? 


408  THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC  APOSTACY. 

The  Spirit  explicitly  declares  that,  in  the  after  seasons, 
that  is,  in  the  times  succeeding  the  era  of  the  apostolic 
personal  ministry,  some  t-'v*?,  shall  apostatize  from  the 
faith — from  the  principles  of  Christianity.  Some — as 
if  it  were  a  portion  of  the  church,  or  certain  churches, 
or  certain  individuals,  and  not  the  whole  body.  Now, 
although  the  entire  church,  and  especially  as  represented 
by  its  chiefs,  did  in  fact  share  in  the  ascetic  apostacy, 
by  approving  it,  it  was  specifically  the  error  of  a  class, 
or  brotherhood,  every  where  existing  indeed,  yet  no 
where  embracing  the  community.  It  was  otherwise  in 
relation  to  tiie  worshipping  of  images,  and  the  praying 
to  the  saints,  which  were  the  errors  of  the  church  at 
large,  while  the  ascetic  practice  was  the  error  of  some, 
and  the  marks  of  apostacy  here  mentioned  are  peculiarly 
the  characteristics  of  the  anchorets  and  ccenobiles,  or 
the  ascetics  of  the  two  classes,  the  solitary  and  the  con- 
ventual. 

The  ellipsis  of  the  third  verse  being  supplied,  as  it  must, 
by  the  word  }iiKivovra>v,  or  one  of  similar  import,  then  the 
meaning  will  be  that  the  body,  or  community,  or  sect, 
to  which  the  prediction  relates,  will  be  distinguished  by 
it  insisting,  in  an  absolute  and  invariable  manner,  and  in 
relation  to  all  who  come  within  the  circle  of  its  autho- 
rity, upon  abstinence  from  matrimony,  and  from  the  or- 
dinary indulgences  of  the  appetite.  Whatever  diversi- 
ties might  be  admitted  in  relation  to  other  points  of  dis- 
cipline witliin  this  apostate  community,  no  exceptions 
could  be  allowed  in  regard  to  these  two.  The  first  law 
(and  an  iron  law)  of  this  predicted  body  should  be  the 
preservation  of  virginity,  and  its  second  law,  equally 
binding  upon  all,  although  susceptible  of  diversities  in 
the  interpretation,  was — a  general  and  severe  abstemious- 
ness, as  to  diet,  and  the  most  rigorous  occasional  fast- 
ings.    So  it  should  be,  that,  after  setting  off  every  va- 


THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC  APOSTACY.  409 

riable  or  incidental  peculiarity  attaching  to  this  apostacy, 
in  different  times,  and  communities,  these  two  marks 
should  always  belong  to  it,  namely,  the  enforcement,  or 
the  pretended  enforcement  (for  hypocrisy  was  also  to  be 
a  characteristic  of  the  system)  of  celibacy,  and  of  fast- 
ing. And  we  are  directed  to  look,  not  around  the 
church,  but  loithin  its  pale,  for  the  defection  which  is 
thus  described. 

Whatever  force  we  may  attach  to  the  words — "  For- 
bid,"* and  "  Command,"  they  can  mean  no  more  than 
a  peremptory  and  invariable  injunction,  affecting  who- 
ever comes  within  the  limits  of  the  legislating  body.  The 
Romish  church  did  not  enforce  celibacy  either  upon  the 
clergy  of  the  eastern  church,  or  upon  Persian  mages; 
for  its  jurisdiction  did  not  extend  so  far;  but  its  prohi- 
bitions reached  to  the  utmost  border  of  its  acknowledged 
authority,  and  even  within  that  circle,  while  it  laid  down 
an  irreversible  law,  admitting  of  no  exemptions,  the  most 
flagrant  violations,  both  in  regard  to  continence,  and  ab- 
stinence, every  where  prevailed.  The  papacy  took  to 
itself  these  marks  of  an  apostate  church,  by  exerting  all 
its  authority  for  maintaining  the  ascetic  principle  and 
practice,  as  well  in  relation  to  the  secular,  as  the  regular 

^Kaxuai,  hinder,  restrain,  deny  permission,  or  forbid,  whe- 
ther authoritatively  and  effectively,  or  only  in  intention:  impe- 
dio  quovis  modo,  et  factis  et  verbis,  quominus  aliquid  fiat.  To 
prohibit  by  edicts,  and  under  penalties,  is  a  special  sense  of  the 
word.  But,  as  well  in  a  more  general,  as  in  a  more  strict  sense, 
the  ancient  church,  that  is,  of  the  fourth  century,  forbade  to  mar- 
ry— absolutely,  within  the  pale  of  the  ascetic  community;  and 
generally,  as  to  the  clergy,  by  the  force  of  opinion  and  usage. 
What  the  encratites  did  in  the  second  century,  the  church  catho- 
lic did  in  the  fourth ;  and  any  endeavour  to  affix  the  prediction, 
now  before  us,  to  that  early  sect,  must  a  fortiori,  attach  it  also  to 
the  ascetic  system  of  the  next  age. 
35* 


410  THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC  APOSTACY. 

clergy.  But  then,  tlie  Nicene  cluirch,  long  before,  had 
done  the  very  same  thing,  and  liad,  in  like  manner,' 
branded  itself  as  apostate,  and  not  in  an  incidental  or 
partial  manner,  but  by  directing  tlie  steady  force  of  its 
utmost  influence  toward  tlie  end  of  giving  extensive  ef- 
fect to  the  ascetic  rule  of  life.  The  only  style  of  Chris- 
tianity which  it  would  consent  to  speak  of  as  complete, 
and  pre-eminently  excellent,  was  that  which  observed 
this  ascetic  rule.  The  highest  encomiums,  as  we  have 
seen,  were  lavished  upon  these  two  foremost  articles  of 
the  monastic  institute — virginity  and  abstinence.  Every 
one  of  its  great  divines  gives  his  zealous  support  and 
solemn  sanction  to  this  institute;  and,  if  celibacy  were 
not  sternly  and  invariably  enforced  upon  its  clergy,  they 
were  taught  to  thiidv  themselves  degraded  if  ihey  refused 
to  observe  it.  Mean  while,  as  to  the  ascetic  body,  the 
law  of  celibacy  was,  in  the  fullest  sense,  absolute. 

The  point  now  before  us  is  of  no  small  importance; 
for  the  inference  it  involves  fixes  the  apostolic  brand  of 
apostacy  upon  the  Nicene  cluirch,  and  tiierefore  goes 
far  in  determining,  by  a  summary  method,  the  present 
controversy  concerning  "church  principles."  I  confi- 
denily  appeal,  then,  in  this  instance,  to  plain,  unpreju- 
diced minds,  and  ask  whether  or  not  Paul's  prediction 
attaches  to  the  asceticism  of  the  ancient  church?* 

Protestant  commentators,  in  referring  to  tliis  predic- 
tion, have  been  wont  to  call  it — "a  striking  prediction 
oi  popery.'"  But  why  of  popery?  as  well  say,  "of 
Spanish  Catholicism,"  or  "of  Irish  Catholicism."  The 
special  marks  herein  given  us,  attach,  distinctively,  nei- 

*  Let  the  reader  consider,  in  this  connexion,  Jerome's  state- 
ment of  the  errors  of  Jovinian,  of  which  he  courteously  says — 
hsBc  sunt  sibilia  serpentis  antiqui.  Adv.  Jovin.  lib.  i.  toward  the 
beorinninnr. 


THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC  APOSTACY.  411 

iier  to  the  Irish,  nor  to  the  Spanish  forms  of  the  gene- 
ral superstition;  nor  to  the  papacy  peculiarly.  Tiie 
Komish  church,  centuries  after  the  monastic  institute 
had  been  every  where  established,  and  long  after  the 
lime  when  the  celibacy  of  the  secular  clergy  had  been 
universally  assented  to  as  proper,  if  not  indispensable, 
gave  its  sanction,  formally,  to  the  common  opinion,  by 
specific  enactments.  But  in  what  terms  had  ihe  Nicene 
church  uttered  itself  on  this  subject  loner  before? — hear 
its  highest  authority;  Certe  confiteris  non  posse  esse 
episcopum,  qui  in  episcopatu  filios  faciat;  alioqui,  si  de- 
prehensns  fuerit,  non  quasi  vir  (husband)  tenebitur,  sed 
quasi  adulter  damnahitur.*  That  is  lo  say,  in  effect, 
whereas,  Paul  had  distinctly  spoken  of  a  bishop  as  a 
married  man,  and  a  father,  the  Nicene  church,  iiaving 
first  had  its  "  conscience  seared  as  with  a  hot  iron," 
read  the  apostolic  text,  and  then  deliberately  decided 
that  a  bishop  who  did  not  separate  himself  from  his 
wife,  should  be  regarded  as  no  better  than  an  adulterer! 
Again;  Aut  virgines  clericos  accipiunt,  aut  continentes; 
aut,  si  uxores  habuerint,  mariti  e^se  desinuntA  That 
is  lo  say,  whereas  the  Lord  had  solemnly  decreed  that 
*' what  God  had  joined  together,  man  shoukl  not  put 
asunder,"  the  Nicene  church,  having  lost  all  religious 
sensibility  of  conscience,  could  coolly  look  at  this  di- 
vine law,  and  then  reverse  it  by  its  own  impious  ordi- 
nance, tliat  its  ministers,  in  receiving  orders,  should  se- 
parate  themselves  from  their  wives — a  law  to  which 
submission  was  yielded  in  innumerable  instances.  Upon 
many,  excommunication  was  actually  inflicted  on  ac- 
count of  their  having  returned  to  the  society  of  their 
wives,  after  ordination:  in  many  instances,  when  mar- 

*  Adversus  Jovin.  lib.  i.  t   Adversus  Vigilantura. 


412  THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC  APOSTACY. 

ried  men  had  been  promoted  to  ecclesiastical  dignities, 
in  compliance  with  the  tumultuous  will  of  the  populace, 
a  long  course  of  penance  was  imposed  upon  them,  in 
order  to  expiate  the  offence.  In  several  recorded  in- 
stances men  who  sincerely  desired  to  evade  such  pro- 
motions pleaded  their  disqualification,  on  the  very  ground 
of  their  being  married  men.  'J'he  second  council  of 
Carthage,  held  within  the  limits  of  the  Nicene  era,  thus 
speaks — Omnibus  (episcopis)  placet,  ut  episcopi,  prcsby- 
leri,  et  diaeoni,  et  qui  sacramenta  contrectant,  pudicitife 
custodes,  etiam  ab  uxoribus  se  abstineant!*  Epiphani- 
ust  offers  an  apolo^ry  f(ir  those  cases  in  which,  by  sheer 
necessity,  married  men  had  been  admitted  to  priest's 
orders;  and,  from  Cyprian  downwards,  the  flagrant  im- 
piety of  a  man's  "  putting  away  his  wife,"  when  pro- 
moted to  the  episcopate,  received  authentication  in  the 
practice  of  the  most  eminent  persons.  During  the  same 
time,  not  only  did  thousands  of  persons  yield  obedience 
to  the  monastic  law,  and  renounce  marriage;  but  hun- 
dreds put  away  their  wives,  deserted  their  children,  and 
hid  themselves  in  monasteries;  and  their  doing  so,  es- 
pecially when  tliey  surrendered  their  patrimony  to  the 
church,  was  lauded  as  the  highest  art  of  piety.:}: 

Does  then  the  prophetic  mark  of  "  forbidding  to  mar- 
ry," attach,  or  not,  to  the  Nicene  church  generally,  and 
to  the  monastic  institute  specifically;  oris  it  equitable  to 
go  on  saying,  as  we  have  been  used  to  do,  that  this  is  a 
sign  of  the  apostate  papacy?  Is  not  this  a  question 
simply  historical,  and  admitting  of  a  peremptory  an- 
swer— Yea  or  Nay? 

*  Con.  Carthag.  can.  2.  t  Hseres.  59. 

t  Basil  will  be  hereafter  cited  in  illustration  of  this  article  of 
the  monastic  economy — namely,  the  surrender  of  all  property, 
and  generally  to  the  monastery. 


THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC  APOSTACY.  413 

As  lo  the  otlier  definite  sign,  the  "  commanding  to  ab- 
stain from  meat,"*  there  can,  I  think,  be  no  need  to  ad- 
duce formal  evidence.  The  practices  of  abstinence  from 
animal  food,  and  the  rigorous  fasts  enjoined  by  the  an- 
cient church,  and  especially  enforced  within  the  monas- 
tic houses,  are  too  well  understood,  and  have  been  too 
often  described,  to  leave  room  for  a  question  on  the  sub- 
ject. But  let  us  turn  to  the  other,  and  less  definite  cha- 
racteristics of  the  predicted  apostacy,  and  in  doing  so 
we  may  recede,  in  our  order,  from  the  fixed  points,  al- 
ready considered. 

These  apostate  communities,  or  individuals,  within 
the  church,  were  so  to  speak  and  act,  as  to  prove  tliat 
they  liad  lost,  in  a  deplorable  degree,  their  sensibiiity  (is 
religions  men — "  having  their  consciences  seared  as 
with  a  hot  iron."  That  is  to  say,  as  when,  to  an  ulce- 
rated or  mortified  limb  (according  to  the  rough  methods 
of  the  ancient  surgery)  a  heated  iron  was  applied,  with 
the  intention  of  destroying,  for  ever,  the  sensibility  of 
the  diseased  part.  Wiiat  then  may  be  the  meaning  of 
this  bold  figure  as  applied  lo  those  who  prohibited  mar- 
riage, and  enjoined  fasting?  One  should  say,  that  it 
described  the  state  of  mind  of  those  who,  having  sur- 
rendered tiiemselves  to  the  influence  of  some  false  and 
pernicious  religious  principle,  had,  in  so  doing,  become, 
as  it  were,  unconscious  of,  or  incapable  of  perceiving, 
the  very  plainest  injunctions  of  the  divine  law.  A  si- 
milar condition  of  the  conscience  we  have  an  instance 
of  in  the  pharisees,  to  whom  our  Lord  applies,  with  in- 
dignant scorn,  the  epithets — "  fools,  and  blind — phari- 

*  In  what  way  these  two  main  articles  of  asceticism  bore  one 
upon  the  other,  producing  the  worst  evils,  appears  from  the  con- 
fessions of  the  monkish  writers;  see,  for  instance,  Cassian,  p. 
3'59,  et  scq.  and  Jerom,  ad  Eustach. 


414  THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC  AP08TACY. 

see,  liypocrile — blind  pliarisee;"  and  who,  with  God's 
law  before  them,  to  which  they  owned  submission,  yet, 
set  it  at  defiance,  and  made  it  void  by  iheir  wicked  and 
fooli.sli  enactments. 

What  plirase  then  can  better  describe  (in  so  few 
words)  the  religious  condition  of  tiie  ascetic  mind?  The 
false  oriental  philosophy  having  been  admitted,  which 
put  abstraction  and  penance  in  the  room  of  the  gospel, 
and  of  true  holiness,  a  thick  infatuation  thenceforward 
look  possession  of  all  minds,  so  that  the  most  extreme 
contradictions  of  the  inspired  rules  of  morality  were  al- 
lowed and  approved,  even  while  this  rule  itself  was  daily 
before  the  eyes,  and  was  echoing  in  the  ears  of  all.  A 
sufficient  instance  of  this  sort  of  contumacy  is  the  one  al- 
ready adduced:  no  practical  rule,  any  where  found  in  the 
apostolic  writings,  is  more  clear,  or  more  free  from  am- 
biguity, than  that  which  permits  and  recommends  the 
marriage  state  to  bishops;  nevertheless,  with  this  rule 
full  in  its  view,  the  Nicene  church  forbade  matrimony  to 
its  bishops.  Our  Lord,  in  the  tone  of  the  supreme  law- 
giver, said,  "  let  not  man  put  asunder  what  God  has 
joined;"  and  tlie  apostle  determines,  that,  even  the  hea- 
thenism of  one  parly  should  not  be  held  aground  of  ex- 
ception to  this  rule.  But  the  Nicene  church,  fully  in- 
formed of  God's  law,  in  this  respect,  decided  otherwise, 
and,  on  pain  of  degradation,  or  even  excommunication, 
decreed  that  a  priest  or  bishop,  if  already  married,  should 
separate  himself  from  his  wife;  and  it  pronounced  those 
who  did  n«)t  do  so,  to  be  living  in  adultery!  Christ  had 
said,  to  do  this  is  a  sin:  the  Nicene  church  said,  not  to 
to  do  it  is  a  sin;  and  to  do  it  is  an  angelic  merit.  The 
apostle  says,  "  whoremongers  and  adulterers  God  will 
judge:"  the  church  said,  he  is  an  adulterer  who,  on  re- 
ceiving priest's   orders,  does  not  put  away   his  wife! 


THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC  APOSTACY.  415 

This  then  is  what  we  may  well  understand  as  "  having 
the  conscience  seared  as  with  a  hot  iron."* 

On  this  point,  again,  let  the  substantial  injustice  that 
has  so  long  been  done  to  the  church  of  Rome,  by  pro- 
testants,  be  adverted  to  and  disclaimed.  To  the  vast 
majority  of  all  who  have  lived  under  the  shadow  of  the 
papacy — clergy  and  laity,  the  scriptures  have  ever  been 
sealed,  or  at  best,  very  partially  known;  and  not  known 
at  all,  as  to  the  passages  that  are  flatly  opposed  to  the 
Romish  errors.  With  respect  to  such,  therefore,  there 
did  not  take  place  this  cauterizing  of  the  conscience;  and 
many  affecting  instances  are  on  record,  of  the  painful 
sensibility  of  those  who,  happening  to  hear  something 
more  than  they  had  heretofore  learned  of  God's  word, 
mournfully  exclaimed, — "  If  this  be  God's  word,  all 
that  we  have  hitherto  been  taught,  is  utterly  false."  But 
the  case  was  quite  otherwise  with  the  Nicene  church; 
and  this  indeed  is  at  once  its  wonder,  its  merit  in  one 
sense,  and  its  sin  in  another,  that,  while  the  grossest 
superstitions  were  promoted,  and  the  most  outrageous 
violations  of  scriptural  piety  were  practised,  the  scrip- 
tures themselves  were  copiously  read  and  expounded 
in  the  churches,  and  were  actually  in  the  hands  of  the 
opulent,  at  least,  and  were  thoroughly  familiar  to  many 
of  the  ascetics.t     In  whatever  way  we  may  account  for 

*  Perhaps  we  could  no  where  find  a  more  striking  instance  of 
this  cauterizing  of  the  conscience,  than  in  the  case  oi^  Jerome, 
who,  with  more  knowledge  of  the  scriptures  than  any  other  di- 
vine of  his  times  (and  few  of  any  age  have  sixrpassed  him)  coolly 
cuts  a  path  for  himself  through  the  sacred  text,  whenever  he  has 
a  point  of  superstition  to  carrj-.  His  tracts  against  Jovinian 
and  Vigilantius  abound  with  instances  of  this  kind  of  audacity. 
To  these  we  must  hereafter  refer 

+  It  is  affirmed  by  Palladius:;  Jerome,  and  others,  m  their  lives  of 


416  THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC  APOSTACY. 

this  inconsistency,  the  fact  should  surely  be  taken  into 
the  reckonini(  when  we  are  balancing  the  merits  of  the 
Nicene  and  Romish  churches;  and  if  the  particular  mark 
of  a  cauterized  conscience  be  in  question,  it  must  be 
granted  to  attach  more  directly  to  those  who,  knowing- 
fully  their  Lord's  will,  yet  boldly  set  it  at  naught,  than 
to  those  who,  although  doing  the  same  thing,  knew  not 
that  will. 

"Speaking  lies  in  hypocrisy" — narrating  falsehoods, 
for  the  purpose,  as  we  colloquially  say,  of"  making  out 
a  case;"  or,  "  of  putting  a  good  face  upon  things."  Now 
really  one  can  hardly  imagine  a  phrase  that  could  better 
describe  the  legend-telling  style  of  the  ascetic  writers. 
There  is  absolutely  no  class  of  writers,  in  the  whole 
range  of  literature,  at  all  to  be  compared  with  these,  in 
this  rcs|iert.  Wouder-mongors  are  they,  from  the  ear- 
liest to  the  latest  of  the  tribe;  and  these  wonders — these 
tales  of  exploits,  passing  human  strength  and  virtue, 
liave  all  one  meaning,  and  one  and  the  same  manifest  in- 
tention, namely,  that  of  glorifying  the  ascetic  institute. 
Open  these  books  where  you  please,  and  you  will  rare- 
ly find  two  pages  together  destitute  of  some  tale  of  saint- 
Iv  prowess;  and  each  has  the  ever-recurring  moral — 
"  What  giants  of  piety  are  we  monks!"  Let  the  reader 
say  whether  it  be  not  so,  and  for  this  purpose  let  him 
take  in  hand  any  one  of  the  Nicene  ascetic  writers,  and 
then  decide  whether  this  mark  also  of  the  predicted  aj)os- 
tacy  does  not  belong  to  the  ascetic  institute  of  the  an- 
cient church.  Are  not  the  ascetics  the  tellers  and  makers 
of  falsehoods,  for  an  interested  j)urpose — "  in  hypoeri- 
sy?"* 

the  hermits,  that  some  of  them  could  repeat,  memoriter,  a  large 
yortion  of  tlie  scriptures,  and  some  the  New  Testament  entire. 
*  Jeromes  Life  of  St.  Hilarion,  his  contemporary,  I  reccm- 


THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC  APOSTACY.  417 

*'  Giving  heed  to  seducing  spirits,  and  teachings  of, 
or  concerning,  demons."  Of  all  error,  and  of  each  in 
particular,  it  might  be  affirmed,  that  it  was  suggested  by- 
evil  spirits:  the  phrases  thus  understood,  would  therefore 
have  no  specific  import,  nor  could  they  avail  us  in  endea- 
vouring to  attach  the  prediction  to  any  one  of  the  thou- 
sand heresies  that  have  sprung  up  within  the  church. — 
But  as  it  is  the  characteristic  of  the  prophetic  style  to  be 
definite,  we  must  take  these  phrases  in  their  characteristic 
sense,  and  assume  that  the  "teachings,"  to  which  "some 
should  give  heed,"  were  narrations,  and  pretended  re- 
velations, concerning  supernal  beings,  or  the  invisible 
species  that  are  believed  to  haunt  the  earth.  Now  what 
is  that  element  which  we  find  every  where  mixed  up 
with  the  ascetic  records?  what  is  it  by  which  the  con- 
tinence, the  abstinences,  the  macerations,  and  the  mi- 
racles of  the  ascetic  worthies  are  made  to  assume  a  dra- 
matic air?  Is  it  not  the  ever-recurring  tales  of  conflicts, 
personal  and  visible,  with  the  infernal  legions?  Is  not 
this  taste  for  demonological  adventures  the  very  charac- 
teristic of  monkery?  and  has  it  not  been  so  from  the 
earliest  to  the  latest  times?  The  farce  of  monkery  has, 
in  every  age,  shown  the  same  personages  on  the  stage — 
namely,  the  gaunt  spectres  of  humanity,  the  monks  and 
hermits,  and  the  same  aerial  troops,  besetting  these 
heroes  like  swarms  of  wasps.  In  proof  and  illustration 
of  all  these  predicted  characteristics  of  the  ancient  asce- 
ticism, we  could  not  do  better  than  appeal  to  the  most 
elaborate,  and  the  most  authentic  of  all  the   extant  me- 

mend  entire  to  the  calm  consideration  of  those  who  would  satisfy 
themselves  as  to  the  point  now  in  hand.  Let  this  piece  be  in- 
cluded among  those  selected  to  make  up  the  Library  of  the  Fa- 
thers :  the  Christian  community  would  then  fairly  know  what  is 
before  them. 

as 


418  THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC  APOSTACY. 

morials  of  this  order  of  piety — the  piece  I  have  already 
referred  to — Athanasius's  life  of  St.  Antony.  In  this, 
we  have  a  genuine  portrait  of  Nicene  monkery  in  its 
very  fairest  colours;  and  the  features  it  presents  are  pre- 
cisely those  which  constitute  the  prophetic  marks  of  the 
predicted  apostacy. — That  is  to  say — a  sternly  enforced 
celibacy,  as  the  chief  of  all  virtues, — a  rigorous  system 
of  abstinence,  entire  as  to  animal  food,  and  extreme  in 
all  kinds,* — an  obstinate  contrariety  to  scripture  pre- 
cepts and  principles,  even  wliile  scripture  is  on  the  lip — 
an  unbounded  credulity  in  regard  to  invisible  agency, 
and  a  general  style  o{  pretension,  as  to  miraculous  pow- 
ers, and  superhuman  virtues,  such  as  involves  more  than 
a  suspicion  of  deliberate  knavery.  I  must  here  warmly 
recommend  the  conscientious  inquirer,  first,  to  fix  in 
his  mind  the  several  particulars  of  Paul's  characteristics 
of  the  coming  apostacy,  and  then  to  peruse  those  memo- 
rials of  the  Nicene  asceticism  whicli  he  will  find  almost  on 
every  page  of  the  church  historians,  Socrates,  Sozomen, 
and  Theodoret,  and  in  Athanasius,  Chrysostom,  Palla- 
dius,  and  Jerome. 

But  there  yet  remains  a  mark  to  be  considered.  Those 
who  should  apostatize,  were  to  do  so  in  giving  heed  to 
*' seducing  spirits." — False  teachers,  say  the  commen- 
tators, and  no  doubt  truly;  but  yet  too  indefinitely.  As 
any  heresy  or  error  maj'  be  attributed  to  the  influence  of 
infernal  suggestions,  so  does  every  error  take  its  rise 
from,  and  spread  by  the  means  of  "  false  teachers;" — 

*  Jerome,  in  his  Life  of  Hilarion,  describes,  very  minutely  and 
solemnly,  the  saint's  diet,  in  each  period  of  his  long  ascetic 
course,  who  never  broke  his  fast  until  sunset.  No  person  of  in- 
genuous mind  can  read  this  life  and  not  acknowledge  that  the 
Nicene  asceticism  is  distinctly  marked  as  the  apostacy  which 
?aul  predicted. 


THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC  APOSTACY.  419 

this  vague  interpretation,  therefore,  although  true  generi- 
cally,  does  not  aid  us  in  attaching  the  prediction  to  its 
object:  so  understood,  the  terms  will  apply  to  whatever 
we  please.  Let  it  be  inquired,  then,  whether  there  be 
not  a  meaning  more  precise,  couched  in  the  phraseology. 
The  "  giving  heed "  seems  to  indicate  a  listening  to 
something  from  without^  as  if  a  doctrine,  foreign  to  the 
church,  and  of  extraneous  origin,  had  caught  the  ear  of 
the  community,  and  had  captivated  certain  minds.  Now, 
with  the  facts  before  us,  that  the  church  borrowed,  as 
well  the  principle,  as  the  practices  and  rules  of  its  asceti- 
cism from  the  oriental  contemplatists,  the  phrase  in  ques- 
tion receives  at  once  a  specific  meaning.  Those  who 
"  turned  away  from  the  faith,"  did  so  in  listening  to  a 
foreign  doctrine. 

Then,  should  we  err,  or  assume  more  than  history 
makes  good,  in  understanding  these  "  seducing  spirits," 
as  the  gnostic  teachers,  arrogating  to  themselves  the  title 
vvivfxArriKoit  and  whose  doctrine  was  not  merely  seduc- 
tive, or  erroneous  in  a  general  sense,  but  specifically 
characterised  by  its  lawless  and  interminable  roamings, 
through  the  dark  and  unknown  regions  of  the  spiritual 
universe?  Such,  eminently,  were  those  impostors  and 
dreamers,  in  giving  heed  to  whom  the  more  ardent  and 
meditative  members  of  the  early  church  fell  into  the 
snare  of  the  oriental  asceticism,  and  became  the  authors 
of  a  system  of  factitious  pietism,  which  quickly  dis- 
placed apostolic  Christianity. 

Let  it  now  be  imagined  that  monkery  had  been  con- 
fined to  the  easier)!  church,  and  that  it  had  not  arisen 
until  the  sixth  century,  so  as  that  it  had  stood  related  in 
no  way  to  any  system  with  which  our  modern  opinions 
or  institutions  are  implicated.  In  that  case,  should  we 
have  felt  any  diflSculty  in  appropriating  to  it  the  apostolic 


420  THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC  APOSTACY, 

prediction — an  apostacy,  arising  within  the  church,  and 
marked  by  the  prohibition  of  marriage,  and  of  meats, 
by  contempt  of  the  divine  law,  by  impudent  pretensions, 
and  hypocrisies,  and  by  a  boundless  credulity,  in  regard 
to  demoniacal  agency? — would  not  these  characters  have 
been  enough  to  convince  us  that  the  prediction  had  re- 
ceived its  fulfilment?  But,  in  fact,  tliis  same  asceticism 
has,  in  an  equal  degree,  affected  the  western  church; 
nor  have  protestant  commentators  hesitated — how  should 
they  hesitate  in  so  plain  a  case? — to  avail  themselves  of 
this  prediction,  as  marking  the  apostacy  of  Rome.  Un- 
fortunately, however,  in  our  eagerness — the  eagerness 
natural  to  controvertists — to  attach  this  brand  to  the  pa- 
pacy^ we  have  too  much  forgotten  that  Rome  only  in- 
herited and  shared  the  more  ancient  apostacy.  What 
justice  then,  or  what  historical  accuracy,  is  there  in  the 
customary  protestant  comment  on  this  passage — "  a 
clear  prediction  of  the  monastic  system  of  the  Romish 
church?''^  With  quite  as  much  propriety  might  the  be- 
lief of  the  resurrection  be  called  "  a  dogma  of  the  pa- 
pacy." 

Nothing  so  much  favours  a  bad  cause  as  to  load  it 
with  more  disgrace  than  strictly  belongs  to  it;  for,  in  so 
doing,  we  enlist  in  its  defence  the  best  feelings.  Popery 
will  live  and  triumph  so  long  as  those  corruptions  con- 
tinue to  be  called  popish  which,  in  fact,  were  much  more 
ancient.  In  the  present  instance  I  appeal  to  serious  and 
candid  minds,  competently  informed  in  church  history, 
and  ask  whether  the  Brand  of  apostacy  be  not  herein 
fixed  by  the  apostolic  hand  upon — the  Nicene  Church? 
Perhaps  no  method  more  conclusive  or  concise  could  be 
adopted  by  a  conscientious  inquirer,  in  relation  to  the 
present  controversy,  than  that  of  so  making  himself  ac- 
quainted with  the  Ascetic  Institution  of  the  fourth  cen' 


THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC  APOSTACY.  421 

tury,  as  to  be  able  to  reply,  for  himself,  to  the  question, 
— Whether  that  institution  meets  and  satisfies  the  terms 
of  the  predicted  apostacy? 

I  am  inclined  to  press  this  definite  argument,  nor 
shall  easily  consent  to  its  being  evaded.  What  can  be 
more  summary  or  clear  than  the  process  of  reasoning  we 
have  to  pursue;  for  a  multifarious  controversy  converges 
to  a  focus  at  this  point.  The  Christianity  of  the  fourth 
century  is  now  proposed  to  us  as  our  pattern,  or  as  an 
imbodied  exposition  of  the  apostolic  mind,  written  and 
unwritten.  Specifically,  this  body  of  principles  and 
practices  is  said  to  be  contained  in  the  extant  writings  of 
Athanasius,  Basil,  and  Ambrose.  (Let  any  others  be 
added;  protestants  will  except  against  none.)  Now 
these  writers,  along  with  their  contemporaries,  have 
handed  down  to  us,  with  their  warmest  approval,  be- 
side the  great  dogmas  of  theology,  and  the  general  prin- 
ciples of  Christian  morality,  and  of  worship,  and  of 
church  government,  a  certain  artificial  scheme  of  life, 
not  enjoined,  indeed,  upon  all  Christians,  but  recom- 
mended as  "  the  more  excellent  way,"  and  as  that 
which  the  most  devoted  souls  would  always  embrace. 
By  eminence  this  scheme  is,  in  their  view,  the  path  of 
perfection. 

Moreover  it  is  a  simple  historical  fact,  that  this  same 
scheme  of  life,  unaltered  in  any  of  its  principles  or  re- 
quirements, has  come  down  from  age  to  age,  and  is  now 
extant,  entire,  as  a  main  element  of  Romanism.  The 
monkery  of  the  papacy,  is  in  form  and  substance — the 
ascetic  system  of  the  third  and  fourth  centuries.  The 
difference  between  the  two  does  not  amount  to  so  much 
as  the  diversities  that  distinguish  one  order  of  regulars 
from  another.     If  an  exception  to  the  present  argument 

a6* 


422  THE  PREDICTED  ASCETIC  APOSTACY. 

can  be  raised  upon  the  ground  of  the  difference  between 
papistical  monkery  and  Nicene  asceticism,  let  that  dif- 
ference be  clearly  stated,  and  be  shown  also  to  be  such 
as  affects  our  intended  conclusion. 

But,  in  the  monkery  of  Romanism,  and  not  less  in 
the  Nicene  ascetic  institute,  we  find,  beyond  all  doubt 
or  question,  Paul's  marks  of  the  coming  apostacy;  nor 
is  there  any  other  system,  or  body,  or  sect,  within,  or 
around  the  pale  of  the  church,  to  which  these  designa- 
tions can  be  made  to  attach. 

It  is  also  to  be  observed,  and  the  highest  importance 
belongs  to  the  fact,  that,  while  the  reformers,  German, 
Swiss,  and  English,  jiaid  a  modest  and  religious  regard 
to  antiquity,  and  have  left  many  proofs  of  their  desire  to 
adhere  to  it,  as  far  as  they  could,  they,  one  and  all,  ut- 
terly rejected  the  ancient  asceticism,  and  broadly  sepa- 
rated the  churciies  ihey  founded  from  the  branded  apos- 
tacy, ancient,  and  strongly  recommended  as  it  was. 

Again,  it  is  to  be  noticed,  that  those  who,  at  the  pre- 
sent moment,  are  explicitly  or  covertly  giving  it  to  be 
understood  that  they  have  very  little  sympathy  with  the 
reformers,  and  that  they  would  gladly  put  the  Nicene 
fathers  in  their  room,  are  also  favourably  looking  toward 
the  ancient  ascetic  institute,  in  its  several  elements,  and 
are  not  hesitating  to  recommend  its  characteristic  articles. 

These  momentous  considerations,  and  significant  facts, 
I  recommend  to  the  dispassionate  attention  of  those 
whose  consciences  are  not  "seared  as  with  a  hot  iron." 
Let  it  not  however  be  supposed  that  I  would  apply  this, 
or  any  such  phrase,  in  an  opprobrious  sense  to  the  pre- 
sent promoters  of  asceticism,  or  as  if  it  implied,  in  their 
case,  a  moral  turpitude,  or  a  conscious  resistance  to  truth 
perceived.  What  it  docs  imply,  in  my  own  use  of  it, 
in  this  instance,  maybe  otherwise  termed,  a  being  given 


EXTENT  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE,  ETC.  423 

up  to  an  infatuation,  which,  like  a  thick  fog,  actually 
conceals  from  the  view,  objects  the  nearest  at  hand. 
Our  own  times  have  furnished  two  or  three  signal  in- 
stances of  this  sort  of  *'  strong  delusion,"  of  which  some 
have  become  the  victims,  whose  sincerity  ought  not  to 
be  questioned,  and  who  have  given  notoriety  to  their 
pitiable  fate  by  eminent  powers  of  mind,  and  many 
shining  accomplishments.  In  considering  cases  of  this 
sort,  a  grim  suspicion  as  to  the  real  origin,  or  as  one 
might  say — authorship,  of  such  delusions  forces  itself 
upon  the  mind,  and  returns,  again  and  again,  after  it 
may  have  been  dismissed  at  the  remonstrance  either  of 
skepticism,  or  of  charity.  The  counterfeit  piety  of  the 
monastic  system,  was  the  fatally  successful  "tempta- 
tion" of  the  ancient  church: — the  revival  of  the  very 
same  principle  and  system,  under  the  attractive  colours 
of  a  high-wrought  refinement,  to  what  can  we  trace  it 
but  to  the  immortal  craft  of  the  same  adversary? 


THE  EXTENT  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE, 
AND  THE  SANCTION  IT  RECEIVED  FROM 
THE  NICENE  CHURCH. 

Nothing  is  more  monotonous  than  the  story  of  the 
monkish  life,  whether  pagan,  Christian,  or  Mahometan, 
This  phantasy,  or  ignis  fatuus  of  the  ecclesiastical  levels, 
find  it  in  what  climate  we  may,  or,  whether  we  look  for 
it  in  our  own  times,  or  in  the  middle  ages,  or  in  the 
Nicene  age,  or  in  the  remotest  periods  of  history,  shows 
the  same  form  and  the  same  hue.     Like  the  long  trains 


424        THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE,  AND  THE  SANCTION 

of  figures  that  adorn  the  passages  of  an  Egyptian  ten 
pie,  there  is  throughout,  one  costume,  one  physiognomj  . 
one  style  of  attitudes,  one  dull  ground,  and  one  or  two 
crude  colours. 

It  is  really  surprising  to  find  in  how  small  a  degree  the 
widest  diversities  of  religious  belief,  as  well  as  the  most 
extensive  differences  of  climate,  and  national  character, 
have  modified  this  immemorial  species  of  insanity. 
During  the  lapse  of  at  least  three  thousand  years,  the 
first  principles,  the  aim,  the  practices,  and  even  the  visi- 
ble and  graphic  characteristics  of  the  ascetics,  whether 
eremite  or  coenobite,  have  remained  nearly  the  same,  or 
have  varied  only  as  a  flower  i'l  the  green-house,  or  the 
hot-house,  may  differ  from  its  variety,  afield.  It  is,  in 
fact,  just  thus  that  the  Nicene  monkery  is  to  be  distin- 
guished from  that  of  the  Nubian  gymnosophists,  and 
the  Indian  brahmans,  of  the  remotest  antiquity.  The 
high  and  close  temperature  of  the  church,  brouglit  out 
richer  colours  and  more  leafage,  and  even,  we  may  al- 
low, a  better  fruit;  but  the  plant  has  always  been  the 
same. 

Tlie  chagrin  of  tlie  Romish  missionaries  in  finding, 
wherever  Buddhism  had  prevailed,  the  very  counterpart 
of  their  own  hierarcliical  and  monastic  system,  was  oc- 
casioned by  the  near  resemblance,  or  rather  identity  of 
all  institutes  founded  upon  the  ascetic  principle — "  The 
devil,"  said  they,  "  has  been  at  work  here,  spitefully 
mimicking  the  church  for  our  special  mortification." 
These  good  and  zealous  men  would  have  kept  nearer, 
at  once,  to  historical  and  to  theological  truth,  in  saying 
that,  what  the  crafty  adversary  had  really  done  was  to 
set  the  church  mimicking  the  pagan  delusion. 

Madmen  are  said  to  be  insensible  to  changes  of  tem- 
perature; for  the  mind,  having  come  under  the  tyranny 


IT  RECEIVED  FROM  THE  NICENE  CHURCH.  425 

of  some  one  idea,  or  single  class  of  impressions,  ceases 
to  be  conscious  of  whatever  might  divert  it.  Sultry- 
heat  and  extreme  frost  are  the  same  to  the  maniac,  and 
thus,  and  it  is  a  highly  curious  fact,  the  ascetics  of  the 
torrid  zone  were  not  surpassed,  as  to  contempt  of  the 
extremes  of  heat  and  cold,  by  the  anchorets  of  the  then 
frozen  forests  of  Germany  and  Gaul,  who  would  give 
up  no  point  of  their  discipline — a  discipline  borrowed 
from  Syria  and  Egypt,  during  the  utmost  severities  of  a 
northern  winter.  Should  this  fortitude  be  regarded  as 
the  mild  constancy  of  Christian  courage,  or  as  the  iron 
insensibility  of  lunacy? 

The  burning  solitudes  of  Upper  Egypt,*  and  the 
craggy  seclusions  of  Nubia,  had,  from  time  immemorial, 
been  occupied  by  a  race  of  troglodyte  sages,  whose  suc- 
cessors of  the  Nicene  era  adhered  to  the  very  same 
modes  of  life,  and  professed  the  very  same  abstract  prin- 
ciples, differing  only  in  the  phrases  they  made  use  of, 
and  in  the  circumstance  of  putting  themselves  in  alliance 
with  the  church.  The  church,  on  her  part,  acknow- 
ledged them  as  her  most  illustrious  and  devoted  sons, 
and  made  them  the  objects  of  her  unmeasured  admira- 
tion. India  was,  however,  the  cradle  of  the  anchoretic 
life,  and  Buddhu  the  father  of  its  doctrines;  and  in  like 
manner  as  all  Christendom,  during  many  centuries,  was 
accustomed  to  look  to  Egypt  and  Nubia  for  its  brightest 
patterns  of  holy  abstraction  and  mortification,  so  did 
these  refer  to  the  banks  of  the  Indus,  and  the  Ganges, 
as  the  sources  of  their  doctrine  and  practice. 

*  The  excavated  rocks  which,  in  earlier  times,  had  been  te- 
nanted by  robbers,  or  by  outlaws,  and  afterwards  by  the  coiners 
of  base  money  (Jerom.  Vita  S.  Paul,)  afforded  sepulchral  shelter 
to  the  Christian  ascetics. 


426         THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE,  AND  THE  SANCTION 

Strabo,*  Arrian,t  Diodorus  Siculus4  Porphyry, §  as 
well  as  several  of  the  fathers,  especially  Clement  of 
Alexandria,!!  and  Augustine,^  have  handed  down  inci- 
dental notices  of  the  philosophy  and  manners  of  the  In- 
dian and  Egyptian  gymnosophisls,  such  as  are  amply 
sufficient  for  the  purpose  of  identifying  the  ancient,  and 
the  more  recent — the  Buddiiist,  and  the  Christian  ascetic 
institute.  These  professors  of  a  divine  philosophy,  like 
their  Christian  imitators,  went  nearly  naked;  they  occu- 
pied caverns  or  chinks  in  the  rocks;  they  abstained  en- 
tirely from  animal  food;  they  professed  inviolable  vir- 
ginity;** they  practised  penance;  they  passed  the  greater 
part  of  their  time  in  mute  meditation;  they  imposed  si- 
lence and  absolute  submission  upon  their  disciples;  they 
professed  the  doctrine,  that  the  perfection  of  human  na- 
ture consists  in  an  annihilation  of  the  passions,  and  of 
every  affection  which  nature  has  implanted,  whether  in 
the  animal  or  the  mental  constitution:  abnegation  was, 
with  them,  the  one  point  of  wisdom  and  virtue,  and  a 
reabsorption  of  the  human  soul  into  the  abyss  of  the  di- 
vine mind,  was  the  happy  end  of  the  present  system,  to 
the  pure  and  wise. 

Now,  one  miglit  reasonably  have  supposed,  that  a 
system  of  doctrine  and  practice  such  as  this,  if  it  were 
to  come  at  all  under  the  powerful  influence  of  Christi- 
anity, must  have  admitted  some  extensive  modifications: 
but  it  was  not  so  in  fact: — a  few  phrases  and  another  di- 

*  Strabo,  lib.  xv. 

t  Arrian,  Exped.  Alex.  lib.  vii.  c.  1;  and  Hist.  Ind.  c.  11. 
t  Diod.  lib.  ii. 

§  Porph.  de  Abstinent,  lib.  iv. 
II  Clemens.  Strom,  lib.  i.  and  iii. 
IT  August.  Civ.  Dei,  lib.  xiv.  c.  17;  and  lib.  xv.  c.  20. 
**  Non  enim  est  hoc  bonum,  nisi  cum  fit  secundum  fidem  sum- 
mi  boni,  qui  est  Deus.     Civ.  Dei. 


IT  RECEIVED  FROM  THE  NICENE  CHURCH.  427 

alect,  or  slang,  adopted,  make  almost  all  the  difference 
which  serves  to  distinguish  the  ancient  gymnosophist, 
from  the  Christian  anchoret  of  the  Nicene  age.  If  we 
are  to  confide  in  those  highly  encomiastic  descriptions 
of  these  latter,  which  adorn  the  pages  of  the  Christian 
writers  of  that  era,  the  one  institute  was  a  close  imita- 
tion of  the  other.  The  extant  information  bearing  on  this 
subject  is  not  scanty,  and  it  is  furnished,  explicitly,  or  is 
incidentally  confirmed,  by  Eusebius,  Socrates,  Sozomen,* 
Theodoret,  Athanasius,  Palladius,  Sulpitius  Severus, 
Cassian,  Jerome,  Chrysostom,  Basil,  Augustine,  Isidore, 
Ephrem,  some  of  whom  furnish  the  minutest  details  of 
the  "  seraphic  life,"  and  all  speak  of  it  in  terms  of  won- 
der and  admiration. 

The  more  rigid  and  heroic  of  the  Christian  anchorets 
dispensed  with  all  clothing  except  a  rug,  or  a  few  palm- 
leaves  round  the  loins.f  Most  of  them  abstained  from 
the  use  of  water  for  ablution;!  nor  did  they  usually 
wash  or  change  the  garments  they  had  once  put  on;  thus 
St.  Antony  bequeathed  to  Athanasius  a  skin  in  which 
his  sacred  person  had  been  wrapped  for  half  a  century. 
They  also  allowed  their  beards  and  nails  to  grow,  and 
sometimes  became  so  hirsute,  as  to  be  actually  mis- 
taken for  hyaenas  or  bears. §     It  need  not  be  said  that  ce- 

*  Perhaps  there  is  no  where  to  be  found  a  less  exceptionable 
statement  of  the  nature  and  purport  of  the  monastic  life  than 
the  one  given  by  Sozomen,  lib.  i.  c.  12.  He  subjoins  also  a  rea- 
sonable history  of  the  origin  of  the  institution;  but  let  the  reader 
go  on  to  the  history  of  the  monk  Animon  I 

t  Jerom.  Vita  S.  Paul. 

+  "  It  is  idle  to  think  of  cleanliness  in  a  hair-cloth!"  Jerom. 
Vita  Hilarion.  'H  vi-^ctfAiyog  kav  tov?  voS'ctg  v^olti.  Athan.  Vita 
S.  Ant.  p.  504. 

§  Palladius  reports  several  instances  of  this  kind :  it  is  super- 
fluous to  cite  passages  in  reference  to  jfects  which  have  been  so 


438       THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE,  AND  THE  SANCTION 

libacy  was  the  first  law  of  this  institute,  and  that  an 
abstinence  the  most  rigid  was  its  second  law.  Many, 
having  scooped  narrow  cells  for  themselves  in  the  cre- 
vices of  precipitous  rocks,  built  themselves  in,  leaving 
only  a  small  aperture,  and  depended  entirely  upon  the 
piety  of  their  disciples,  or  admirers,  for  supplying  their 
daily  wants.  Of  many  it  is  affirmed,  that  they  had 
passed  fifty  years  without  exchanging  a  word  with  a  hu- 
man creature.  Some  inflicted  upon  themselves  the  tor- 
tures of  perpetual  ulceration. 

Egypt  seems  to  have  been  the  centre  of  asceticism  in 
its  most  terrible  form;  and  it  was  therefore  toward 
Egypt  that  the  Nicene  writers  directed  the  eyes  of  the 
church,  as  to  the  high  school  of  sacred  wisdom.  In  Sy- 
ria, in  Arabia,  and  in  the  mountainous  regions  of  Asia 
Minor,  especially  in  Pisidia  and  Cappadocia,  a  some- 
what mitigated  rule  of  the  solitary  and  monastic  life  ap- 
pears to  have  prevailed;  the  hermits  building  huts,  com- 
paratively commodious,  in  the  middle  and  higher  regions 
of  the  mountains;  and  often  choosing,  like  Basil,  the 
most  delicious  spots  for  their  abode;*  and  admitting  just 
so  much  relaxation  of  discipline,  as  might  render  this 
mode  of  life  not  altogether  uninviting  to  those  who,  in 
embracing  it,  left  behind  them  the  racking  anxieties,  the 

often  stated,  and  which  no  one  calls  in  question.  The  only  cir- 
cumstance important  to  our  argument  is  this,  that  the  extrava- 
gances often  spoken  of  as  attaching  to  the  more  recent  monkery 
took  their  pattern  from  the  ascetics  of  the  Nicene  age;  and  of 
this  no  one  can  entertain  a  doubt  who  reads  Jerome,  Cassian, 
Athanasius,  Sulpitius,  Palladius.  and  Socrates. 

*  Basil,  a  thorough  enthusiast,  as  to  the  ascetic  life,  paints  it  in 
the  brightest  colours:  his  epistles  to  Nazianzen  might  seduce 
any  imaginative  reader  into  the  wilderness;  if  indeed  he  could 
find  a  wilderness  such  as  Basil  describes  in  a  letter  to  his  friend. 
Naz.  torn.  i.  p.  835. 


IT  RECEIVED  FROM  THE  NICENE  CHURCH.  429 

wrongs,  and  the  privations  of  common  life.  To  many, 
celibacy  and  fasting  were  but  a  moderate  price  to  pay 
for  tranquillity,  and  an  exemption  from  laborious  courses, 
and  dangerous  services;  especially  if  already  the  fervour 
of  life  was  gone  by,  and  if,  as  with  many,  appetite  had 
been  abated  by  disease,  or  early  luxurious  habits. 

At  what  time  precisely,  the  wilderness  exchanged  its 
pagan  for  a  Christian  tenantry,  it  is  not  easy  to  ascer- 
tain. In  some  instances,  no  doubt,  the  very  individuals 
who  had  begun  their  course  as  heathen  gymnosophists, 
ended  it  as  Christian  anchorets.  But  ofteaer,  probably, 
the  deserted  cell  or  cavern  of  the  savage  philosopher 
was  taken  possession  of  by  one  v/ho,  having,  in  the 
neighbouring  cities,  received  the  knowledge  of  the  gos- 
pel, betook  himself  to  the  angelic  life  in  consequence  of 
persecutions,  or  of  disappointments  in  love  or  in  busi- 
ness. This  is  certain,  that  many  of  thesy  solitaries 
were  well  acquainted  with  the  scriptures,  and  must  there- 
fore have  passed  some  years  in  Christian  society.* 

The  coenobite  institution  reached  its  organized  state  in 
an  irregular  manner,  and  continued,  to  a  late  period, 
open  to  many  anomalies.  In  frequent  instances,  those 
who  professed  virginity  or  continence,  continued  to  re- 
side with  their  friends,  and,  in  fact,  lived  at  large,  using 
their  profession  as  a  general  license,  or  ticket  of  liberty, 
exempting  them  from  the  restraints  which  the  manners 
of  the  age,  and  country,  as  well  as  the  common  senti- 
ments of  modesty,  imposed  upon  women  wishing  still 
to  be  regarded  by  the  other  sex,  as  worthy  to  be  chosen 

*  The  writings  of  Ephrem  may  be  referred  to  as  a  sample  of  the 
mode  of  instruction  usual  in  the  monasteries,  and  which,  what- 
ever may  have  been  its  defects,  yet  imbodied  copious  citations 
of  scripture.  Some  of  this  writer's  sermons  are  little  more  than 
string's  of  texts. 

37 


430       THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE,  AND  THE  SANCTION 

as  wives.  In  truth,  the  reserves  to  which,  in  the  an- 
cient world,  all  women  of  the  liberal  class  were  sub- 
jected, were  broken  through,  as  on  one  hand  by  courte- 
sans, so  on  the  other  by  the  virgins  of  the  church,  nor 
did  the  circumstance  of  enjoying,  in  common  with  the 
former,  a  liberty  from  which  others  were  debarred,  fail 
to  convey  an  infectious  sentiment  of  shamelessness  to 
the  habits  and  sentiments  of  the  latter.  Who  is  it  that 
appears  in  public  places,  unattended,  unveiled,  and  dain- 
tily attired?     Who  and  what  is  she? no,  you  are 

wrong  in  your  conjecture;  it  is  "a  virgin  of  the  church."* 
The  contubernium,  or  -Htixo^iovy  offered  many  advan- 
tages to  those  who  had  renounced  the  business  and  re-- 
lationships  of  common  life.  It  excluded  some  scandals, 
or  at  least  hid  them.  Moreover  in  these  religious  lodging 
houses,  a  common  fund,  derived  in  part  from  the  church 
chest,  and  in  part  from  the  dedicated  or  sequestered  or 
bequeathed  property  of  the  rich  members  of  the  society, 
might  the  most  easily  be  disturbed.  The  society  (bro- 
therhood or  sisterhood)  thus  assembled  under  one  roof, 
was  conveniently  subjected  to  the  daily  visitations  of  the 
clergy,  and  so  came  under  the  direct  authority  of  the 
bishop.  Nor  should  we,  in  justice,  omit  to  say,  with- 
in these  seclusions,  the  routine  of  religious  services 
would,  M'ith  the  most  effect,  be  carried  on,  and  the  rules 
of  the  monastic  life  be  the  best  enforced.  At  the  same 
time,  those  manual  labours  which  were  an  important  in- 
gredient of  the  system,  could,  in  such  houses,  be  ren- 
dered the  most  serviceable,  and  be  made  to  press  even- 
ly upon  all,  and  to  contribute  to  the  support  of  all. 

*  Farther  on  I  have  made  a  reference  to  Chrysostom,  in  rela- 
tion to  the  manners  of  the  nuns,  which  those  will  turn  to  who> 
are  incredulous  on  the  subject;  and  which  those  will  gladly 
avoid,  who  would  not  infect  their  own  minds. 


IT  RECEIVED  FROM  THE  NICENE  CHURCH.  431 

Monasteries  and  convents,  in  the  modern  sense  of  the 
terms,  do  not  belong  to  the  Nicene  age;  and  it  was  the 
praise  of  the  Romish  church,  and  especially  of  certain 
reformers,  celebrated  as  the  founders  of  orders,  to  have 
gradually  brought  the  irregular  and  scandalous  practices 
of  an  earlier  time  under  some  wholesome  restraints. 
Unquestionably  the  monkery  of  the  middle  ages  wag 
better  ordered  than  that  of  the  Nicene.* 

The  loose,  and  often  exaggerated  style  of  the  church 
writers,  when  speaking  of  the  extent  of  the  system 
which  they  so  much  admired,  discourages  the  endea- 
vour to  ascertain,  even  in  a  general  way,  the  actual 
numbers  of  the  anchorets  and  monks  in  different  coun- 
tries. This  number  no  doubt  varied,  from  year  to  year, 
with  the  changing  fortunes  of  the  Christian  body;  times 
of  persecution,  as  well  as  of  public  calamity,  driving 
multitudes  into  the  wilderness  who,  during  seasons  of 
peace,  would  not  have  abandoned  their  places  in  socie- 
ty. Then  again  the  extraordinary  reputation  of  certain 
heroes  of  asceticism,  or  an  unusual  flush  of  the  fanati- 
cal impulse,  aff'ecting  the  church,  locally  or  generally, 
for  awhile,  would  operate  to  swell  these  bands,  which 
might  afterwards  see  themselves  reduced  (if  we  may 
borrow  a  military  term)  to  a  skeleton. 

*  The  reader  may  perhaps  here  recollect  the  comparison  so 
indignantly  drawn  by  Erasmus  (Vita  Hieron.)  between  the 
monkery  of  his  own  times,  and  that  of  the  times  of  Jerome;  and 
it  may  appear  as  if  this  high  authority  contradicted  what  is  af- 
firmed above.  But  in  fact  what  Erasmus  insists  upon  is  the  in- 
carceration and  consequent  inanity  and  misery  and  frivolity  of 
the  monks,  his  contemporaries,  as  compared  with  the  license  en- 
joined by  those  of  Jerome's  times.  He  does  not  say  that  this  li- 
berty did  not  give  room  for  much  licentiousness.  Nor,  in  truth, 
are  his  statements,  in  the  passage  referred  to,  borne  out  by  the 
actual  evidence.  Basil  and  Cassian  contradict  him  in  each  point 
of  his  encomium  of  the  ancient  monastic  system. 


432        THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE,  AND  THE  SANCTION 

Some  of  the  Egyptian  abbots  are  spoken  of  as  having 
had  five,  seven,  or  even  ten  thousand  monks  under  their 
personal  direction;  and  the  Thebais,  as  well  as  certain 
spots  in  Arabia,  are  reported  to  have  been  literally 
crowded  with  solitaries.  Nearly  a  hundred  thousand  of 
all  classes,  it  is  said,  were  at  one  time  to  be  found  in 
Egypt.  The  western  church  probably  could  boast  of  no 
such  swarms.  This  however  is  certain,  that,  although 
the  enthusiasm  might  be  at  a  lower  ebb  in  one  country 
than  in  another,  it  actually  affected  tlie  church  universal, 
so  far  as  the  extant  materials  of  ecclesiastical  history 
enable  us  to  trace  its  rise  and  progress.  These  mate- 
rials, that  is  to  say,  the  writings  of  the  fathers,  and  the 
church  historians,  leave  no  doubt  as  to  the  prevalence  of 
the  ascetic  system  throughout  the  countries  to  which 
they  themselves  belonged,  namely — Syria,  Egypt,  Ara- 
bia, Asia  Minor,  Thrace,  Italy,  Gaul,  Spain,  and  North 
Africa,  Moreover  the  narratives  which  they  have  fur- 
nished of  the  propagation  of  the  gospel  in  countries  re- 
mote from  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  Roman  empire,  make  it  evident  that, 
in  most  instances,  the  individuals  who  carried  the  know- 
ledge of  Christianity  into  tho  secountries  carried  it  un- 
der its  ascetic  guise.* 

*  The  reader  may  find  a  pertinent  instance,  related  by  Socra- 
tes, lib.  i.  c.  20,  concerning  the  conversion  of  the  Hiberians  (be- 
tween the  Euxine  and  the  Caspian)  who  were  brought  over  to  the 
faith  by  the  means  of  a  Christian  slave,  who  '•  led  the  philoso- 
phic life,"  practising  the  ascetic  discipline  with  the  extremes! 
severity.  See  also  Sozomen,  lib.  ii.  c.  7.  Another  instance  of  the 
same  sort  this  writer  reports,  lib.  iv.  c.  36,  concerning  the  con- 
version of  the  Saracens.  The  conversion  of  India,  under  the 
direction  of  Athanasius,  Soz.  lib.  ii.  c.  24,  we  cannot  doubt  to 
have  been  effected,  in  the  ascetic  spirit.  The  reconversion  of 
Britain,  under  the  auspices  of  Gregory  I.  has  the  same  charac- 
teristics. 


IT  RECEIVED  FROM  THE  NICENE  CHURCH.  433 

An  absolute  universality  of  assent  can  scarcely  be 
pretended  in  support  of  any  one  article  of  the  Christian 
faith: — there  have  been  some  to  oppose,  or  to  deny  al- 
most every  doctrine,  in  its  turn.  What  is  practically 
meant  by  the  ab  omnibus  is— the  greater  number.  Or- 
thodoxy, during  some  eras,  could  by  no  means  claim 
the  majority  as  its  adherents.  As  to  the  ascetic  princi- 
ple, the  assent  of  the  church  is  more  nearly  complete 
than  in  most  cases,  and  the  dissidents  (hereafter  to  be 
spoken  of)  were  very  ^evf.  It  may  however  be  well, 
and  in  order  to  exclude  exceptions,  or  doubts,  on  the 
part  of  those  who  are  not  conversant  with  church  litera- 
ture, to  run  over  the  list,  and  summarily  to  report  the 
suffrages  of  all  whose  testimony  can  be  of  any  impor- 
tance. But  in  doing  so,  as  I  have  had,  and  shall  yet 
have,  to  cite,  or  to  refer  to  particular  passages  in  these 
same  authors,  all  bearing  on  the  subject  of  the  ascetic 
institute,  a  general  statement,  such  as  I  am  sure  will  not 
be  contradicted  by  any  who  are  themselves  familiar  with 
the  patristic  volumes,  is  all  that  can  be  needed. 

What  we  have  now  in  view  is  not  the  earlier  history 
of  the  ascetic  practice,  but  the  credit  it  enjoyed,  and 
its  universality  in  the  Nicene  age; — or,  more  definitely, 
during  the  fourth  century.  We  need  not  therefore  here 
go  back  to  Tertullian,  Cyprian,  Origen,  Dionysius,  con- 
cerning whose  opinions,  however,  there  can  be  no  ques- 
tion. 

The  extant  writers  of  this  period  (those  not  included 
of  whom  some  fragments  only  remain)  are  not  more  in 
number  than  about  twenty.  We  shall  glance  at  them  in 
their  order. 

The  first  to  be  named,  and  who  finished  his  course  in 
the  last  years  of  the  third  century,  is  Methodius,  bishop 
37* 


434        THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE,  AND  THE  SANCTION 

of  Olympus  in  Lycia,  and  afterwards  of  Tyre,  and  a 
martyr.  This  writer  (commended  by  Jerome*)  speaks 
the  sentiments  of  the  church  in  the  time  of  Cyprian.  A 
tone  of  moderation  distinguishes  this  writer;  and  amid 
the  vagaries  of  an  uncurbed  fancy,  he  pays  more  regard 
to  good  sense  and  great  principles  than  do  many  of 
higher  repute.  The  Banquet  (Symposium)  of  the  Ten 
Virgins,  assumes  as  true  the  universal  opinion,  that 
virginity  is  the  highest  of  all  excellences,  and  that  it  is 
the  only  way  of  near  approach  to  God,  which  is  possi- 
ble on  earth.t  In  this  writer  then  we  find,  and  apart 
from  the  fanaticism  and  extravagance  of  the  Nicene  di- 
vines, that  settled  opinion  of  tiie  ancient  churcii  from 
which  sprung,  inevitably  and  naturally,  the  ripe  monk- 
ish system,  and  at  length,  the  enforced  celibacy  of  the 
clergy.  Men  of  mild  disposition,  like  Methodius,  if 
they  did  not  ^^forhid  to  marry,"  effectively  restrained 
from  marrying;  and  in  fact,  writings  such  as  his  were 
likely  to  have  more  influence  in  spreading  the  error,  than 
those  of  a  sterner  character.  It  may  be  noticed  that 
Methodius  (as  quoted  by  Theodoret)  holds  that  lofty 
style  concerning  martyrdom,  which  we  have  mentioned 
as  running  parallel  with  the  ascetic  enthusiasm. 

Lactantius,  the  Christian  Cicero,  and  who  is  better 
worth  the  reading  than  most  of  his  contemporaries,  had 
far  too  much  vigour  of  mind  to  give  himself  blindly  to 
the  extravagances  common  in  his  times;  nevertheless  he 
too  accepts,  as  unquestionable,  the  opinion  concerning 
the  transcendental  excellence  of  absolute  continence;  and 
he  says  of  one  who  adiieres  to  it,  adopting  the  universal 
style,  hie  erit  consimilis  Deo,  qui  virtutem  Dei  cepitrj 

*  Catalogue  Script.  Eccles. 

\  As  quoted  by  Photius,  Myriob.  art.  237. 

X  Lactant  de  Voro  Cultu.  bb.  vi.  c.  23. 


IT  RECEIVED  FROM  THE  NICENE  CHURCH.  435 

and  he  affirms  that  continence  is  the  height  and  consum- 
mation of  all  the  virtues:  he  aUudes  also  to  the  "  plu- 
rimi,"  and  the  "  multi,"  who,  in  his  times,  preserved 
the  "  blessed  and  incorrupt  integrity  of  the  body,"  and 
who  made  proof  of  this  "  celestial  m.ode  of  life."  At 
the  same  time  this  writer's  very  slender  or  ambiguous  re- 
ference to  any  doctrine  properly  evangelic,  ought  to  be 
noticed.  Christ,  in  his  viev\^,  lived  and  died  as  a  pattern 
of  all  virtue,  and  that  he  might  relieve  men  from  an  ex- 
cessive fear  of  death,  and  show  them  how  to  subdue  the 
passions.  Such,  at  this  early  time,  was  the  cold  Soci- 
nianism  of  too  many,  calling  themselves  Christians! 

A  place  among  the  authorities  of  the  Nicene  age  ought 
certainly  to  be  allowed  to  the  council  of  Nice  itself,  and 
in  connexion  with  our  present  subject,  a  part  of  its  pro- 
ceedings, if  we  are  to  give  credit  to  Socrates  and  Sozomen, 
demands  to  be  noticed ;  premising  only  an  explanatory 
statement  concerning  the  opinion  of  the  church,  as 
indicated  by  the  decrees  of  preceding  councils.  The 
council  of  Ancyra,  held  at  the  commencement  of  the 
fourth  century,  had  decreed,*  and  its  decision  ex- 
presses the  feeling,  as  well  as  defines  the  practice  of 
the  church  at  the  time,  that,  if  a  deacon,  when  lie  re- 
ceived ordination,  made  an  explicit  profession  of  his  in- 
tention to  marry,  as  being  in  his  ov/n  case  unavoidable, 
he  should  be  permitted  to  do  so,  the  bishop's  license  to 
that  effect  screening  him  from  future  censures.  But  that 
if,  at  the  time,  he  made  no  such  protestation,  and  on  the 
contrary  allowed  it  to  be  supposed  that  he  professed  con- 
tinence, and  yet  afterwards  married,  he  should  be  re- 
moved from  his  ministry.  What  was  this  restricted 
permission  to  marry,  but  a  virtual  "  forbidding  to  marry?" 

*  Canon  9.     Routh,  vol.  iii.  p.  410. 


436       THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE,  AND  THE  SANCTION 

It  was  clearly  an  expression  of  the  unfitness  of  the  mar- 
ried for  the  sacred  office,  and  thus  an  infatuated  contra- 
vention of  the  apostolic  law  on  this  very  point.  I  can- 
not but  notice,  in  passing,  the  curious  coincidence  that, 
as  appears  from  the  14th  canon  of  this  council,  there  were, 
at  this  time,  some  of  the  clergy,  "priests  and  deacons, 
who  not  merely  abstained  from  animal  food,  but  who  held 
it  in  such  abhorrence  that  they  would  not  even  touch  any 
vegetables  that  had  been  cooked  with  it.  The  simple 
abstinence  the  council  allows;  but  condemns  this  ex- 
treme scrupulosity.  Did  not  the  prophetic  marks  at- 
tach to  the  ante-Nicene  church?* 

The  same  council  (canon  19)  decreed  that  those  who 
falsified  their  profession  of  virginity,  should  be  numbered 
among  such  as  had  contracted  a  second  marriage!  The 
same  canon  prohibits  the  cohabiting  of  virgins  with 
men — a  custom  of  which  we  find  the  traces  in  all  direc- 
tions. The  nuns,  thus  living  under  the  protection  of 
their  spiritual  guardians,  were  denominated  their  *'  sis- 
ters," or  '*  darlings,"  ctyctTnirdn. 

The  synod  of  Neocaesarea,  held  about  the  same  time,t 
or  a  little  later,  but  before  the  council  of  Nice,  decreed 
that  a  priest  marrying,  should  be  deposed.  If  this  be 
not  a  "  forbidding  to  marry,"  what  are  the  enactments 
of  Hildebrand?  It  is  true  that,  at  this  time,  and  long 
afterwards,  many  priests,  and  even  bishops,  continued 
to  live  with  their  wives,  and  had  children  born  to  them, 

*  There  was  a  well  understood  ^>//?/5icaZ  connexion  between  the 
two  main  articles  of  the  ascetic  life.  Rigorous  fasting,  says 
Jerome,  and  none  knew  better  than  he  how  necessary  it  was  in 
this  respect,  id  indispensable  to  those  who  would  be  perfect,  quod 
aliter  pudicitia  tuta  esse  non  possit.     Ad  Eustoch. 

t  Routh,  vol.  iii.  p.  457.  A  various  reading  in  this  canon 
does  not  affect  its  meaning  in  relation  to  our  immediate  object. 


IT  RECEIVED  FROM  THE  NICENE  CHURCH.  437 

al though  still  approaching  the  altar;  but  none  (except  the 
deacons  who  had  made  this  express  stipulation,)  were 
allowed  to  marry  after  ordination.*  For  a  second  mar- 
riage, the  church  imposed  a  course  of  penance,  more  or 
less  severe. 

At  the  council  of  Nice,  according  to  the  accounts  of 
Socrates,!  and  Sozomen,±  who  tell  the  same  story,  it 
was  proposed,  with  a  view,  as  it  is  said,  to  the  reforma- 
tion of  manners,  that  a  rule  should  be  established,  re- 
quiring all  bishops,  priests,  deacons,  and,  says  the  latter 
historian,  subdeacons,  who  had  married  before  their  or- 
dination, to  withdraw  from  their  wives,  or  cease  to 
cohabit  with  them;  and  the  colour  of  the  account  leads 
us  to  suppose  that  this  regulation,  which,  in  respect  to 
the  church  universal,  was  called  "  a  new  law,"  although 
not  new  to  several  of  the  churches,  was  near  to  have 
been  carried,  and  probably  would  have  been,  had  not  the 
good  sense  and  right  feeling  of  one  of  the  bishops  pre- 
sent defeated  the  fanaticism  of  the  others.  Paphnutius, 
a  bishop  of  the  Thebais,  a  confessor,  having  lost  an  eye 
in  the  late  persecution,  and  himself  an  ascetic,  rose,  and 
with  spirit  asserted  the  honour  and  purity  of  matrimony, 
and  insisted  upon  the  inexpediency  of  any  such  law, 
likely  as  it  was  to  bring  many  into  a  snare.  For  a  mo- 
ment reason  triumphed;  the  proposal  was  dropped,  nor 
any  thing  farther  attempted  by  the  insane  party,  beyond 
the  giving  a  fresh  sanction  to  the  established  rule  or  tra- 
dition, a.^x'^i^'^  TrapASoa-iv,  that  nouc  should  marry  after  or- 
dination. 

In  these  facts,  then,  we  have  the  evidence  of  a  preva- 
lent, if  not  a  universal  feeling,  against  matrimony,  as  a 
pollution,  and  therefore,  a  disqualification  in  those  who 

*  Rouih,  p.  464.  t  Socr.  lib.  i.  c.  11.  t  Socr.  lib.  i.  c.  2a 


438      THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE,  AND  THE  SANCTION 

sustained  office  in  the  church.  And  so  strong  was  this 
feeling  with  some,  that  it  impelled  them  toward  the 
monstrous  impiety  of  enjoining  the  actual  separation  of 
man  and  wife,  in  direct  contravention  of  the  divine  law. 
Moreover  the  fact  (in  other  ways  abundantly  established) 
is  here  attested,  that  marriage  after  ordination  was  then, 
and  had  long  been  considered,  as  disgraceful  and  unlaw- 
ful: in  other  words,  the  ancient  church  had  deliberately 
taken  to  itself  the  predicted  mark  of  apostacy,  by  op- 
posing itself  to  marriage,  and  by  actually  forbidding  it  to 
all  who  desired  to  make  proficiency  in  piety;  and  to  its 
clergy — as  such: — a  married  man  might  be  ordained; 
but  no  ordained  person  might  marry!  Common  sense 
resents  the  futility  of  the  endeavour  to  draw  an  impor- 
tant distinction  between  the  papacy,  and  the  Nicene 
church,  on  this  ground. 

It  is  of  no  importance  to  our  present  argument  to  fix 
the  precise  date  of  the  Apostolic  Constitutions.  This 
spurious  compilation  may  at  least  be  taken  as  good  evi- 
dence in  relation  to  the  notions  and  usages  of  the  Nicene 
age,  and  it  is  manifestly  intended  to  represent  those  of 
a  much  earlier  period.  This  appears  among  many  other 
instances  from  the  description  given  (lib.  ii.  c.  2,)  of  the 
bishop's  qualifications,  who  "  should  have,  or  should 
have  had,"  a  wife.  The  class  of  virgins  is  however 
recognised,  once  and  again,*  as  a  constituted  order,  in 
the  church.  The  main  intention  of  the  authors  or  com- 
pilers of  this  collection  being  to  hitch  the  Christian  hie- 
rarchy upon  the  foundation  of  the  Aaronic  priesthood, 
and  in  fact  to  claim  for  the  bishop,  as  Pontifex,  the  ut- 
most stretch  of  honour  and  of  power,  according  to  the 


*  Lib.  ii.  cap.  25,  26,  57;  lib.  iii.  c.  15;  lib.  iv.  c.  14;  and  lib.  viii, 
C.24. 


It  RECEIVED  FROM  THE  NICENE  CHURCH.  43Si 

theory  which  Hildebrand  laboured  to  realize,  whatever 
does  not  directly  subserve  this  purpose  is  very  lightly 
touched.  That  the  lofty  rank,  and  irresponsible  power 
assumed  for  the  bishop,  was  in  fact  the  creation  of  a 
later  age  than  the  apostolic,  we  need  no  other  proof  than 
the  incidental  one,  afforded  by  the  oversight  or  blunder 
of  the  forger  of  these  Constitutions,  who,  in  describing 
the  church  (the  structure)  and  the  mode  of  worship,* 
betrays,  little  aware  of  what  he  is  doing,  the  costume, 
so  to  speak,  of  the  fourth  century.  Of  the  ill  opinion 
entertained  of  second  marriages,  and  of  the  infamy  at- 
tached to  a  third,  we  find  the  indications.!  Neverthe- 
less, and  it  should  be  remarked,  the  fanatical  extravagance 
which  attaches  to  the  language  of  the  great  Nicene  wri- 
ters, when  they  enter  upon  subjects  of  this  class,  is 
entirely  avoided  in  the  Apostolical  Constitutions.  In 
fact,  there  is  far  less  of  gnosticism,  and  of  the  ascetic 
mania,  in  this  spurious  v,^ork,  than  presents  itself,  every 
where,  on  the  pages  of  Ambrose,  Basil,  Chrysostom, 
and  their  contemporaries.  It  might  indeed  pretty  fairly 
be  appealed  to  as  exhibiting  the  difference  between  the 
ancient,  and  the  Nicene  church;  the  latter,  rather  than 
the  former,  being  the  model  to  which  we  are  referred  by 
the  Oxford  divines. 

The  tenth  chapter  of  the  sixth  book,  enumerates,  and 
condemns,  the  wild  notions  of  the  times,  including  the 
prohibition  of  marriage,  and  of  animal  food,  which  was 
then  actually  insisted  upon  by  the  ascetic  party  in  the 
church.  Well  had  it  been  if  the  ambitious  divines  who 
are  now  commended  to  us  as  our  masters^  had  known 
how  to  confine  themselves  to  the  profession  of  faith  con- 

*  Lib.  ii.  c.  57,  and  lib.  viii.  c.  12. 

t  Lib.  iii.  c.  2;  and  especially  lib.  vi.  c.  \7,  where  a  second  mar- 
riage is  forbidden  to  the  clergy. 


440       THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE,  AND  THE  SANCTION 

lained  in  the  eleventh  chapter  of  this  book;  well,  if  even 
ihey  could  have  respected  common  sense,  in  relation  to 
subjects  which  they  were  not  compelled  to  make  matter 
of  piety.  Let  the  reader  compare  certain  passages  of 
Athanasius,  and  Basil,  cited,  or  referred  to,  above,  with 
the  sober  propriety  of  the  twenty-ninth  chapter.  But 
inasmuch  as  "  church  principles  "  are  not  to  be  supported 
without  the  aid  of  the  divines  of  the  fourth  century,  those 
who,  by  the  necessity  of  the  case,  are  making  their  ap- 
peal to  theni^  involve  themselves  in  a  farther  necessity 
of  either  disguising,  or  of  professing,  every  superstition 
of  the  papacy — and  among  these  errors,  all  the  inherent 
extravagances  of  the  ascetic  institute. 

The  accomplished  Eusebius  of  Ccesarea,  took  up 
Christianity  as  he  found  it,  and  his  evidence,  in  the  pre- 
sent instance,  merely  amounts  to  that  of  a  witness  to  the 
actual  state  of  the  church,  in  his  times.  The  customary 
language  of  admiration  in  regard  to  religious  celibacy  he 
employs,  without  scruple;'  speaking  of  the  choir  of 
nuns,  as  his  contemporaries  were  wont  to  do. 

There  can  be  no  need  to  make  new  citations  from 
Athanasius:  I  will  do  no  more  than  request  the  reader, 
after  referring  to  what  this  great  and  holy  man  has  writ- 
ten on  the  two  allied  subjects  of  virginity  and  fasting, 
and  after  listening  to  his  credulity  concerning  demoniacal 
agency,  to  consider,  with  all  seriousness,  whether  the 
scheme  of  piety  which  he  so  devoutly  recommends,  is 
not  most  distinctly  marked  with  the  characteristics  of 
the  predicted  apostacy.  The  admission  that  it  is  so 
marked,  may  startle  and  distress  some  religious  minds; 
for  long  cherished  illusions  are  never  dispelled  without 

*  As  for  instance: — Vita  Constant,  hb,  iv.  c.  20,  and  28.  Hist, 
Eccles.  lib.  ii.  c.  17. 


IT  RECEIVED  FROM  THE  NICENE  CHURCH.  441 

pain,  amazement,  and  peril.  Yet  what  can  be  done,  on 
the  present  urgent  occasion,  but  resolutely  to  follow 
truth?  I  can  imagine  no  plea  by  aid  of  which  Paul's 
propliecy  can  be  warded  off  from  its  manifest  applica- 
tion to  that  ascetic  institute,  of  which  Athanasius  was 
the  principal  patron. 

The  good  and  superstitious  Cyril  of  Jerusalem  we 
have  already  referred  to,  as  more  moderate  than  many 
of  his  contemporaries:  he  does  not,  however,  scruple  to 
take  lip  the  usual  phrases,*  in  connexion  with  this 
subject. 

Adhering  to  the  order  of  time,  we  pass  from  Palestine 
to  the  extreme  west,  and  find  still  the  same  elements  of 
the  religious  system.  Hilary  of  Poitiers,  in  the  places 
already  referred  to,t  speaks  the  language  of  the  times. 
He  contends  for  that  great  dogma  of  the  ascetic  system, 
the  perpetual  virginity ,J  ita  venerabilis  ejus  ostenderetur 
in  Jesu  matre,  virginitas:  and  perplexes  himself  with  an 
allegorical  exposition  of  Psalm  cxxvii.  in  order  to  re- 
serve or  assert  the  superior  honours  and  blessedness  of 
celibacy. 

We  return  from  the  West  to  the  East,  and  mention 
next,  Epiphanius,  bishop  of  Salamis  in  Cyprus,  of 
whom,  in  connexion  with  our  present  subject,  it  is  enough 
to  say  that  he  was  himself  a  severe  ascetic,  and  the  foun- 
der and  abbot  of  a  monastery: — no  dissident,  therefore, 
from  the  doctrine  and  practices  of  the  Nicene  church. 

Basil  of  CcEsarea,  who  may  be  taken  as  a  fair  speci- 
men of  the  religious  system  which  the  fourth  century 
bequeathed  to  the  eighth  and  ninth,  and  which  system 
we  are  told  to  accept  as  "  ripe  Christianity,"  was,  as 

*  Catech.  vi.  toward  the  end,  and  xii.  xvi.  i  P.  308. 

+  In  Matth.  com.  canon  i. 

38 


I 


442       THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE,  AND  THE  SANCTION 

every  one  knows,  the  great  promoter  of  monkery  in  his 
times;  and  in  fact  his  influence  upon  after  ages  has  been 
deep  and  extensive.  Basil  "  revised,"  would,  perhaps, 
differ  very  little  from  the  scheme  of  doctrine,  worship, 
and  discipline,  which  the  Ofxord  divines,  were  they  once 
set  quite  clear  of  the  untoward  labours  of  the  reformers, 
would  re-establish  in  England.*  In  tliis  enumeration  of 
witnesses  it  would  be  altogether  superfluous  to  make  ci- 
tations from  the  writings  of  those  who  are  well  known 
to  have  been  the  most  ardent  promoters  of  the  ascetic 
practices.  1  therefore  merely  name,  as  coming  next  in 
order  of  time,  Gregory  Nazianzen,  the  intimate  friend 
of  Basil — a  main  pillar  of  that  vast  structure  of  super- 
stition and  idolatry  which  we  have  been  used  to  brand 
as  popery. 

Epiirem  the  Syrian,  who  may  be  read  with  comfort 
and  substantial  profit,  by  any,  bringing  apostolical  Chris- 
tianity with  them,  as  an  antidote,  exhibits,  perliaps,  as 
well  as  any  writer  of  the  class  he  belongs  to,  the  utmost 
extent  to  which  the  blind  gospel  of  the  Nicene  church 
may  be  carried,  in  producing  the  passive  virtues — pa- 
tience, self-denial,  mortification  of  the  appetites,  humi- 
lity, or  rather  siibmissiveness,  obedience,  and  charity,  (in 
the  sense  of  ahnsgiving.)  To  this  list  may  also  be  add- 
ed a  grace  for  which  we  have  no  exact  modern  designa- 
tion— alas  the  poverty  of  a  j)rotestant  church  nomen- 
clature! What  I  mean  ought  not  to  be  called  heavenly- 
mindedness,  for  it  is  llie  condition  of  a  soul,  destitute  of 
light,  and  warmth,  and  hope,  and  faith;  but,  if  a  term 
must  be  coined,  we  must  name  it — wiearthhj -minded- 

*  Those  who  will  soon  be  reading  the  *'  select  "  treatises  of  this 
father,  will  be  virtually  misled  and  imposed  upon,  unless  they 
ook  into  his  entire  works. 


IT  RECEIVED  FROM  THE  NICENE  CHURCH.  443 

7iess;  for  it  was  the  contrary  of  sensuality,  covetous- 
ness,  and  turbulent  passion;  and  yet  not  the  genuine  and 
efficacious  opponent  of  the  sordid  principles  of  our  na- 
ture. In  naming  Ephrem,  I  cannot  but  caution  the  read- 
er against  the  delusion  which  may  be  practised  upon  him 
by  "  selections."  At  this  urgent  moment,  when  the 
church,  is  fearfully  vibrating  between  apostolic  Christia- 
nity and  the  Nicene  superstitions,  nothing  can  be  of  any 
avail  but  an  appeal  to  the  historical  apparatus  entire, 
whence  alone  true  notions  of  things  may  be  derived. 
Selections  are  schooled  witnesses,  and  therefore  worse 
than  none. 

Gregory  of  Nyssa,  the  brother  of  Basil,  and,  although 
a  married  bishop,  yet  so  ardent  an  admirer  of  celibacy, 
that  one  is  apt  to  think  his  wife  must  have  been  a  very 
Xantippe.  In  this  writer  may  be  found  more  than  the 
germs  of  every  abomination  of  the  papacy.  Let  it  be 
granted  that,  in  extravagance  of  expression,  he  goes  a 
little  beyond  some  of  his  contemporaries;  but  yet  is  he, 
in  no  point  of  superstition  or  fanaticism,  at  variance  with 
them.  His  scheme  of  doctrine  and  discipline  is  only 
Nicene  Christianity,  vividly  expressed;  or,  as  one  might 
say,  the  same  outline  of  things  in  bas-relief.  Now  I 
would  gladly  receive  an  ingenuous  reply  to  these  follow- 
ing plain  questions:— 

1st.  Putting  aside  the  mere  ecclesiastical  question  of 
the  pretensions  of  the  bishop  of  Rome,  can  any  broad 
and  intelligible  distinction  be  established  between  Gre- 
gory Nyssen  and  the  Romanism  or  popery  of  the  tenth 
century? 

2d.  Can  any  important  distinction  be  made  good  be- 
tween this  father  and  his  contemporaries,  particularly 
Basil,  Athanasius,  and  Ambrose? 

.3d.  And  this  question  I  would  humbly  and  seriously 


444       THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE,  AND  THE  SANCTION 

address  to  men  fearing  God,  (and  competently  informed,) 
Whether  each  article  of  Paul's  explicit  prediction  of  the 
coming  apostacy  does  not  find  its  pointed  and  complete 
fulfilment  in  the  system  which  this  writer's  works  im- 
body? 

I  can  imagine  several  modes  in  which,  these  questions 
might  be  evaded,  or,  '*  a  case  made  out,"  very  learnedly 
and  ingeniously,  and  much  to  the  satisfaction  of  all  who 
love  to  be  excused  the  toils  of  ijivestigation,  and  which 
should  appear  to  dispose  of  the  difficulty,  and  of  him 
who  starts  it;  but  I  am  thoroughly  persuaded  that,  dealt 
with  apart  from  prejudice  and  controversial  influences, 
they  can  be  replied  to  only  in  one  manner,  and  in  a 
way  fatal  to  the  illusion  which  is  now  spreading  within 
the  protestant  church.  I  abstain  from  advancing  any 
challenge  in  this  instance;  but  will  merely  recommend 
the  conscientious  student  to  read  and  ponder — Gregory 
Nyssen,  and  then  to  ask  himself,  whither  he  will  be 
tendins:  in  surrendering^  himself  to  the  Nicene  divines 
or — to  those  who  have  made  the  Nicene  divines  their 
masters. 

Ambrose  of  Milan,  the  best  authority  in  support  of 
"church  principles,"  and  in  recommendation  of — the 
virtues  of  relics — the  advocacy  of  the  saints — the  celes- 
tial excellence  of  virginity — the  efl^icacy  of  fasting,  and 
other  works  of  penance,  and  of  what  you  please  of  the 
trumpery  of  the  Nicene  and  popish  superstition.  In 
writing  to  Pope  Syricius,  Ambrose  submissively  says — 
quos  sanctitas  tua  damnavit,  scias  apud  nos  secundum 
judicium  tuum  esse  damnatos.*  Well  is  it  for  ihe  Lord's 
people  that  they  are  to  receive  their  award  from  other 
lips;  but  Ambrose  might  have  added,  '*  and  whatever 
your  holiness  approves   at  Rome,  we  approve  also  at 

*  Epist.  42.  class  i. 


IT  RECEIVED  FROM  THE  NICENE  CHURCH.  445 

Milan."  In  fact,  he  gave  all  his  soul,  and  devoted  his 
eminent  talents  to  the  v/ork  of  upholding  the  church  sys- 
tem of  his  times — most  zealous,  when  most  in  the  wrong. 
I  have  already,  and  must  again  cite  him  in  the  course  of 
this  argument. 

The  erudite  Jerome  stands  next  on  our  list  of  Vvitnesses. 
It  may  be  permitted  to  Erasmus,*  while  indignantly  com- 
paring the  sottish  and  vapid  monkery  of  his  own  times, 
with  the  ascetic  system  of  the  Nicene  age,  to  say,  mo- 
nachi  institutum,  quod  ne  quis'in  hoc  erret,  id  temporis 
longe  diversum  erat  ab  hoc  quod  hodie  videmus.  Let  it 
be  that  there  was  a  difference  in  circumstance,  between 
the  two  systems;  but  assuredly  not  in  substance;  and 
whoever  looks  into  this  great  writer's  ascetic  treatises 
and  epistles,  will  grant,  that  on  all  points  of  the  predicted 
apostacy,  Jerome  carried  his  notions  to  the  highest  pitch 
of  extravagance:  but  of  this  more  presently.  Yet  let  us 
notice,  in  passing,  a  signal  instance  of  that  perversion  of 
all  genuine  moral  sentiments — a  perversion  fatal  to  the 
virtue  of  youth,  which  attended  the  universal  notion  of 
the  celestial  merit  of  virginity.  A  youth,  religiously 
educated,  and  religiously  disposed,  overcome  by  tempta- 
tion, falls  into  some  licentiousness  of  conduct:  what  then 
are  the  feelings  which  should  attend  his  recovery  to  vir- 
tue?— sorrow  surely,  and  shame,  in  recollection  of  his 
sin.  It  was  altogether  another  thing  with  the  ascetic 
Jerome,  who,  in  his  own  case,  deplores,  not  tlie  sin  of 
his  early  fall,  but  his  loss  of  caste  among  the  terrestrial 
seraphs,  and  his  having  forfeited  those  ineffable  honours 
of  whicii  others  might  make  their  boast!  Jerome's  lan- 
guage, in  this  instance,  carries  with  it  a  volume  of  mean- 
ing in  relation  to  the  real  quality  of  Nicene  Christianity. 
I  commend  the  passage  to  the  reader's  particular  atlen- 

"  In  the  life  of  Jerome  above  referred  to. 
38*^ 


446      THE  ASCETIC  IN'STITUTE,  AND  THE  SANCTIO.^ 

tion,  and  shall  cite  his  own  words.*  After  protesting 
that  he  does  not  condemn  matrimony,  he  says — Virgi- 
nilatem  autem  in  coelum  fero,  non  quia  habeam,  sed 
quod  magis  mirer  quod  non  habeo.  Ingenua  et  vere- 
cunda  confessio  est;  quo  ipse  careas,  id  in  aliis  prsedi- 
care.  Nunquid,  quia  gravi  corpore  terrae  hasreo,  avium 
non  miror  volatus,  nee  columbam  praedico,  quod  radit 
iter  liquidum,  celeres  neque  commovet  alas?  Notions  of 
this  sophisticated  sort,  are  of  similar  tendency  to  those 
substitutions  of  the  law  of  honour,  for  the  rules  of  vir- 
tue, which  in  fact  give  a  license  to  every  immorality  that 
does  not  happen  to  be  touched  by  the  penalties  of  this 
arbitrary  code.  Jerome  must  take  his  place  among  the 
foremost  promoters  of  the  false  principles  of  the  Nicene 
church  system. 

Mark,  the  hermit,  might  be  cited  along  with  INIacarius 
the  Egyi)tian,  as  affording  evidence  of  the  consolatory 
fact  that  good  sense  and  spirituality  still  held  a  place, 
even  among  the  ascetics:  an  ascetic,  however,  he  is,  and 
moreover  a  mystic,  going  far  toward  the  oriental  illusion 
and  its  pantheism. 

Differ  as  much  as  they  might  on  other  points,  these 
o-reat  writers  are  unanimous  on  the  subject  of  the  ascetic 
doctrine:  thus  Rufinus,  while  rending  his  friend  Jerome's 
reputation,  with  merciless  asperity,  is  as  stanch  a  monk 
as  he,  or  as  any  of  his  contemporaries. 

And  so  again  Augustine,  although  he  claims  to  be  set 
off  from  his  contemporaries,  on  various  accounts,  never- 
theless holds  firmly  to  the  catholic  doctrine,  on  this 
ground;  nor  can  a  more  striking,  or  a  more  edifying  in- 
stance be  adduced,  of  the  sovereign  influence  of  religious 
illusions,  in  perverting  the  strongest  and  the  soundest 

•*  Apologia  ad  Pammach.  toward  the  end. 


IT  RECEIVED  FROM  THE  MCENE  CHURCH.  447 

minds.  If  any  are  sta^rgered  by  Augustine's  authority  in 
this  instance,  and  are  inclined  by  it  to  think  well  of  wha 
otherwise  they  would  not  hesitate  to  condemn,  lei  them 
remember  that  this  same  eminent  father  favours,  and 
warmly  defends,  each  principal  article  of  the  supersti- 
tion of  his  times,  and  has  been,  and  may  fairly  be  cited, 
by  Romanists,  in  support  of  almost  every  element  of  the 
papal  system. 

I  will  not,  however,  dismiss  Augustine  without  refer- 
ring the  reader  to  a  passage  in  which,  by  nice  distinc- 
tions, he  labours  to  set  the  church  clear  from  the  marks 
of  the  predicted  apostacy.*  llle  enim  prohibet,  qui 
hoc  malum  esse  dicit,  non  qui  huic  bono  aliud  melius 
anteponit.  True,  the  church  catholic  did  not  forbid 
marriage,  like  certain  heretics,  universally,  or  as  in  it- 
self abominable;  but  it  did  absolutely  forbid  it  to  all 
who  aspired  to  v/alk  on  the  path  of  what  it  repre- 
sented as  the  only  Christian  perfection:  it  did  abso- 
lutely (or  so  far  as  it  could)  forbid  marriage  to  all  men 
in  orders:  it  discouraged  the  ordination  of  the  mar- 
ried: it  spoke  of  a  second  marriage  as  adultery;  and,  in  a 
word,  it  universally  and  uniformly  taught  a  doctrine,  and 
sanctioned  a  practice,  from  which  nothing  alse  could  re- 
sult but  that  horrible  prohibition  of  marriage,  by  the 
Romish  church,  which,  during  a  long  course  of  ages,  lias 
deluged  Europe  with  licentiousness  and  misery.  Let 
it  be  temperately  asked  whether  the  Romish  church  lias 
assumed  any  general  principle,  in  relation  to  the  celibacy 
of  the  monastic  orders,  or  of  the  clergy,  which  is  not  to 
be  found  distinctly  advanced,  and  warmly  defended,  by 
Auo-ustine  himself.  If  not  (and  no  one  will  affirm  that 
it  did)  then  it  is  equally  unjust  and  frivolous  to  make  a 

*  Contra  Faust,  lib.  xxx.  c.  6. 


448       THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE,  AND  THE  SANCTION 

distinction  between  the  papacy  and  the  Nicene  church, 
in  respect  to  this  mark  of  apostacy. 

All  that  has  been  said  of  Augustine,  is  true  of  his  il- 
lustrious contemporary  Chrysostom.  We  have  heard 
him  using  language,  in  regard  both  to  virginity  and  fast- 
ing, such  as  is  not  surpassed  in  extravagance,  or  in  per- 
nicious tendency,  by  any  popish  writer. 

No  important  accession  to  our  present  argument  would 
be  secured  by  passing  forward  into  the  fifth  century,  or 
by  adducing  the  train  of  secondary  writers  who  mark 
the  course  of  it.  Every  one  knows  what  their  tendency 
is,  as  to  tlie  points  in  question.  But,  if  the  reader 
pleases,  let  him  look  into  Sulpitius  Severus,  (the  bio- 
grapher of  St.  Martin,)  or  into  tlie  churcli  historians, 
Socrates,  Sozomcn,  Theodoret;  or  into  Pailadius,  Isi- 
dore, (Jassian,  or  Cyril  of  Alexandria. 

Whether  the  writers  above  enumerated  belong  to  the 
eastern  or  to  tlie  western,  to  tlie  north  African,  or  to 
the  Alexandrian  churches,  they  hold  the  same  language, 
and  seem  to  emulate  each  other  in  their  zeal  to  promote 
every  one  of  those  notions  and  practices  which,  when 
digested  into  canons,  decrees,  or  ecclesiastical  usages, 
make  up  what  we  mean  by  popery,  or  Romanism,  as 
the  system  adopted  and  enforced  by  the  papacy. 

By  proltstants  it  lias  always  been  admitted,  as  it  has 
always  been  felt  by  tlie  Romish  church  herself,  that  the 
monastic  orders  are  the  strength  of  the  system;  and  it 
was  the  monks  who  were  the  most  determined  oppo- 
nents of  the  reformation.  If,  then,  protestants  still  think 
as  the  reformers  did,  and  as  they  themselves  have  been 
used  to  dO;.  of  the  papacy,  as  an  "apostacy,"  and  as  a 
system  of  cruelty,  corruption,  and  illusion,  the  monkery 
which  has  always  been  the  darling  of  this  church,  and 
its  main  support,  must  take  an  ample  share  of  the  repro- 


IT  RECEIVED  FROM  THE  NICENE  CHURCH.  449 

bation  with  which  we  regard  the  papal  system.  What 
then  is  our  dilemma?  This  same  monkery,  reprobated 
as  a  principal  element  of  popery,  traces  itself  up  to  the 
Nicene  church,  and  glows  in  a  false  splendour  upon  the 
pages  of  every  one  of  the  great  writers  of  the  Nicene 
age.  We  ought,  then,  either  to  embrace  asceticism,  on 
the  ground  of  this  "  catholic  consent,"  and  so  to  re- 
nounce the  reformation;  or,  adhering  to  the  reformation, 
to  disown  the  Nicene  fathers.  There  is  no  consistency 
in  a  middle  course;  nor  can  there  be  coherence  in  a  sys- 
tem which  would  bind  in  the  same  bundle  the  two  op- 
posed authorities. 


THE  OPPOSITION  MADE  TO  THE  ANCIENT 
ASCETICISM. 

Whether  at  all,  or,  to  what  extent,  if  at  all,  the  pre- 
valent ascetic  doctrine  and  practice  were  opposed  by  any 
individuals,  or  parties,  within  the  pale  of  the  church,  al- 
though a  point  of  some  importance  in  itself,  is  not  es- 
sential to  our  present  argument;  I  shall,  however,  devote 
a  page  or  two  to  the  subject,  for  the  purpose  of  excluding 
any  probable  exceptions;  but  must  request  that  the  bear- 
ing of  it  upon  our  inquiry  concerning  the  deference  that 
is  due  to  Christian  antiquity,  may  not  be  lost  sight  of. 
The  case  then  stands  thus. — 

It  has  been  frankly  acknowledged  by  the  advocates  of 
"church,  principles,"  that  they  are  barely  indicated,  if  so 
much,  in  the  canonical  scriptures:  and  that  they  can 
never  be  satisfactorily  sustained  without  the  aid  of  the 
Nicene  writers.     This  being  admitted,  we  may  suppose 


450  THE  OPPOSITION  MADE 

an  opponent  to  say,  as  a  demur  to  the  conclusion  toward 
which  I  am  tending,  "  It  may  be  true  that  the  writers 
who  have  been  cited  did  express  themselves  too  warmly, 
and  with  too  little  caution,  on  the  subject  of  celibacy, 
and  the  excellence  of  the  ascetic  life;  but  there  is  good 
reason  to  think  that,  in  doing  so,  they  outran  the  ge- 
neral feeling  of  the  church:  in  fact,  indications  may  be 
gathered  of  the  existence  of  a  contrary  opinion  and  feel- 
ing." 

Be  it  so;  and  would  tliat  it  had  been  so  to  a  far  greater 
extent  than  we  are  at  liberty  to  assume.  But  then,  in 
what  position  do  we  place  the  extant  church  writers, 
one  and  all;  and  what  will  be  the  value  of  their  evidence 
in  establishing  church  principles?  If  indeed  these  wri- 
ters— that  is  to  say,  all  who  have  come  down  to  modern 
times,  or  all  who  are  usually  appealed  to  as  authorities, 
in  support  of  these  principles,  were  in  fact  maddened 
by  the  ascetic  phrensy,  and  if,  under  its  influence,  they 
forgot  moderation,  and  virtually  belied,  or  greatly  over- 
stated the  general  sentiment  of  the  church,  in  their 
times;  then,  how  can  we  venture  to  rely  upon  them,  as 
our  guides,  in  relation  to  those  other  church  doctrines, 
such  as  the  intrinsic  efficacy  of  the  sacraments,  and  the 
high  bearing  of  the  sacerdotal  office,  in  relation  to  which 
the  inducements  were  manifest  and  strong  to  overstep 
the  limits  of  sobriety? 

If,  after  all,  the  holy  catholic  church  of  the  Nicene  age, 
that  is  to  say,  the  mass  of  Christians,  was  much  more 
moderate  and  sound  than  we  should  suppose,  in  looking 
into  the  fathers  (a  most  comfortable  supposition,  truly!) 
then  it  follows,  that,  in  yielding  ourselves  to  the  gui- 
dance of  these  writers,  we  make  ourselves  the  dupes  of 
their  personal  enthusiasm  and  folly;  and  are  just  so  far, 
and  to  that  extent,  led  astray  from  what  we  are  profess- 
ing to  admire,  namely,  *'  catholic  purity."    Most  clearly. 


TO  THE  ANCIENT  ASCETICISM.  451 

the  fathers,  without  whose  aid,  as  it  is  confessed,  church 
principles  are  not  to  be  established,  can  be  safelv  re- 
sorted to  only  on  the  strength  of  the  contrary  supposi- 
tion, that  they  themselves  were  in  harmony  with  the 
church  of  their  times,  and  did  truly  represent  its  opi- 
nions, feelings,  and  practices. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  if  (and  as  in  fact  is  evident) 
the  extant  church  writers  did  speak  the  mind  of  the  great 
mass  of  Christians  in  their  times,  though  not  absolutely 
of  all,  and  if,  in  the  main,  a  true  notion  of  the  feelings 
and  usages  of  the  church  catholic,  be  gathered  from 
these  remains,  and  if  genuine  church  principles  are  im- 
bodied  in  the  writings  of  Ambrose,  Athanasius,  Basil, 
and  their  contemporaries,  then,  without  a  question,  the 
ascetic  doctrine  and  practice — that  is  to  say  IMoxkery, 
with  its  illusions,  its  frivolity,  its  pretensions,  and  its 
corruptions,  was  a  principal  and  a  darting  element  of  this 
catholic  system;  and  then  moreover,  if,  on  the  authority 
of  the  Nicene  fathers,  the  modern  church  is  to  adopt 
principles  and  practices  which  can  in  no  other  manner 
be  sustained,  there  can  be  no  consistency  in  rejecting 
(merely  because  we  may  not  happen  to  like  it)  its  fully- 
sanctioned  ascetic  system.  Let  us  repress,  if  we  can, 
the  abuses  to  which  that  system  has  always  been  open; 
but  the  institute  itself,  with  tlie  doctrines  on  which  it 
rests,  wants  no  sanction  on  the  part  of  the  auiiiority  to 
which,  in  other  matters,  we  are  religiously  bowing. 

Take  it  then  either  way,  our  inference  is  savecj. — If 
the  ascetic  mania  was  in  fact  more  generally  opposed 
than  we  have  imagined  it  to  have  been,  then  the  ftithers 
are  delusive  guides,  in  regard  to  church  principles;  and 
they  are  especially  to  be  suspected  when  they  are  known 
to  have  been  exposed  to  the  influence  of  powerful  motives 
for  running  into  extravagance.  But  if  such  opposition  was 


452  THE  OPPOSITION  MADE 

in  fact  of  small  amount,  and  if  the  church  catholic  went 
all  the  length  of  its  teachers,  then  tliis  church  catholic — 
people  and  leaders,  together, — was  t!ie  victim  of  a  sys- 
tem, which  we  must  think  false  in  principle,  and  fatal  in 
its  operation,  and  such  as  vitiates  whatever  it  is  min- 
gled with.  An  opponent  may  take  which  alternative  he 
pleases. 

It  may  be  gathered  from  the  language  of  Chrysostora, 
on  several  occasions,*  that  objections  were  raised  against 
the  prevailing  practices  by,  probably,  the  laxer  sort  of 
professed  Christians;  and,  also,  that  more  than  a  (ew^ 
in  and  out  of  the  ciiurch,  were  accustomed  to  make  a 
jest  of  the  enormous  follies,  and  the  hypocrisy,  and  the 
shameless  abuses,  which  disgraced  the  monkish  system.t 
It  cannot  be  imagined  that  in  any  age,  or  whatever  may- 
be the  influence  of  the  promoters  of  fanaticism,  the  com- 
mon sense  of  mankind  should  be  entirely  overpowered, 
or  that  absolute  silence  should  be  imposed  upon  either 
the  remonstrance  of  the  wise,  or  the  ribaldry  of  the  pro- 
fane. All  the  terrors  of  Rome,  in  the  heiglit  of  her 
pride,  did  not  avail  to  protect  the  monks  and  the  monas- 
teries from  the  rebuke  and  contempt  which  they  de- 
served. 

In  fact,  the  existence  of  a  somewhat  formidable  op- 
position, ajid  the  ])revalence  of  a  whispered  contempt, 
might  be  inferred  from  that  very  style  of  extravagance 

*  Tom.  i.  p.  328,  and  the  Treatise  against  the  Impugners  of 
the  Monastic  L'lle, passim. 

t  We  may  easily  imagine  what  would  be  said  and  thought  by 
the  people  at  large,  when  the  monks  were  seen,  in  open  church, 
and  during  the  celebration  of  tlie  "terrible  mysteries,"  to  be 
proffering  all  sorts  of  gallant  attentions  to  the  ladies,  their  com- 
panions. See  the  passage  from  which  I  have  already  cited  some 
sentences,  torn.  i.  p.  2L!7. 


TO  THE  ANCIENT  ASCETICISM.  453 

in  which  the  church  writers  indulge.  Men  of  sense, 
unless  provoked,  and  alarmed,  do  not  often  run  so  far 
upon  a  road  where  they  are  sure  to  be  outdone  by  fools. 
There  were,  in  fact,  some  serious  protests  made,  from 
time  to  time,  against  the  wide-spread  infatuation  of  the 
general  church;  and  we  find  each  of  its  culpable  super- 
stitions on  the  one  side,  branded  with  merited  reproba- 
tion, and,  on  the  other,  passionately  defended  by  per- 
verse ingenuity.  But  in  each  case  the  church  catholic 
proved  itself  too  strong  for  the  dissidents,  who  were 
cursed,  borne  down,  banished,  crushed;  and  so  the  goodly 
structure  of  artificial  piety  was  preserved  from  injury, 
and  safely  handed  down  to  succeeding  ages.  Unhappily 
the  protesting  party,  in  these  several  instances,  and  the 
same  is  true,  more  or  less,  of  every  protest  against  pope- 
ry, down  to  the  time  of  Luther,  took  the  obvious,  but  the 
ineflfective  course,  of  inveighing  against  the  particular 
superstitions  of  the  church;  the  objectors  themselves, 
probably,  not  being  conscious  of  that  fatal  departure 
from  the  first  principles  of  Christianity  wjience  all  these 
errors  had  resulted.  Luther,  on  the  contrary,  steadily 
held  on  his  way,  and  actually  brougiit  about  a  reforma- 
tion, because  (divinely  taught)  he  felt  the  apostacy  of 
the  church  from  tlie  gospel,  long  before  he  had  learned 
to  disapprove  of  the  prevalent  superstitions;  and  he  an- 
nounced to  the  world  the  life-giving  truth  which  the 
church  had  long  lost  sight  of,  while  yet  he  himself  sub- 
missively bowed  before  the  papal  chair. 

Jovinian,  Vigilantius,  and  oihers,  upon  whom  Jerome, 
Ambrose,  and  Augustine  trampled,  do  not  appear  to  have 
understood  tlie  secret  reason  of  the  errors  they  de- 
nounced. We  should  think  so,  judging  merely  from  the 
failure  of  their  endeavours  to  promote  reform.  What, 
39 


454  THE  OPPOSITION  MADE 

their  actual  opinions  were,  is  not  to  be  ascertained;  for 
wc  possess  no  evidence  better  than  the  reports  of  their 
malignant  and  triumphant  antagonists,  to  confide  in 
whom,  in  such  a  case,  woukl  be  something  worse  than 
creduhty;  for  it  would  involve  a  cruel  injustice  toward 
men  who,  by  their  very  persecutors,  have  been  denied 
the  opportunity  of  appealing  to  the  candour  of  posterity. 
The  personal  character  of  Jovinian,  were  it  known, 
might  enable  us  to  form  a  better  opinion  of  his  doctrine: 
it  would  not,  perhaps,  be  altogether  safe  to  interpret  the 
calumnies  of  his  enemies,  as  so  many  testimonies  to  his 
virtue  and  piety.  Nothing,  however,  contradicts  the 
supposition  that  he  honestly  and  religiously  opposed  the 
madness  of  his  times:  at  least  he  did  so  courageously, 
and  he  suflered  the  consequence;  for,  having  been  cede- 
siastically  condemned  at  Home,  and  Milan,  he  was  cU 
villi)  banished  to  a  desolate  island,  where  he  ended  his 
days. 

In  nearly  the  same  path  followed  Vigilantius,  who  had 
been  sustained,  as  it  appears,  by  certain  bishops.  Proh 
nefas!  exclaims  the  sanctimonious  Jerome,*  si  tamen 
episcopi  nominandi   sunt,  qui   non   ordinant  diaconos, 

nisi  prius There  uicre  therefore  some,  and  it  is 

a  consoling  thought,  who,  notwithstanding  the  rabid 
asceticism  of  the  church  at  large,  adhered  at  once  to 
common  sense,  and  to  the  apostolic  injunction,  and  who, 
knowing  the  peculiar  temptations  to  which  the  clergy 
were  exposed  (especially  in  consequence  of  the  easy 

*  Jerome's  Epistles,  and  Treatise,  against  Jovinian  and  Vigi- 
lantius, as  they  are  not  very  long,  will  no  doubt  be  read,  or  at 
least  cursorily  examined  by  the  reader  who  has  access  to  his 
works.  This  comprehensive  reference  may  therefore  be  enough, 
on  the  present  occasion.  The  Epistle  to  Vigilantius,  particular- 
ly, deserves  a  perusal. 


TO  THE  ANCIENT  ASCETICISM.  455 

access  allowed  them  to  convents)  wisely  required  that 
those  whom  they  ordained  should  be  married  men.  It 
was  on  this  very  account,  and  precisely  because  these 
bishops  paid  respect  to  the  commandments  of  God,  dis- 
regarding the  foolish  and  wicked  traditions  of  men,  that 
this  crabbed  monk  grinds  his  teeth  at  them,  and  would 
fain  have  stripped  them  of  their  dignities. 

It  does  not  appear,  as  I  have  already  said,  that  Vio-j- 
lantius,  any  more  than  Jovinian  (or  than  later  reformers, 
before  the  sixteenth  century)  knew  how  to  lay  the  axe 
to  the  root  of  the  superstitions  of  his  times,  by  insistino- 
upon  those  great  principles  of  Christianity,  which,  when 
understood,  exclude  these  follies  in  a  mass,  as  by  the 
force  of  an  inherent  energy,  repelling  whatever  springs 
from  another  source.  His  protest  therefore,  although 
calm,  reasonable,  and  jiot  unsupported,  died  away;  his 
party  was  crushed,  and  the  doctors  who  trampled  the 
remonstrants  under  their  feet,  had  the  satisfaction,  in 
leaving  the  world,  to  see  the  ship  of  the  church,*  in  full 
sail,  gaily  decked  with  all  the  fool's  colours  and  tawdry 
tatters  which  human  wit  could  devise,  and  making  its 
way,  in  gallant  bearing,  by  favour  of  wind  and  tide,  to- 
ward the  haven  which  it  at  length  reached  under  the 
pilotage  of  the  Gregorys,  and  the  Innocents  of  Rome. 
Jerome  may  fairly  claim  the  praise  of  having  sealed  the 
fate  of  Christianity,  for  a  thousand  years,  by  the  influ- 
ence of  his  pernicious  pen;  and  especially  in  crusliing, 
as  he  had  done,  the  rising  tendency  toward  reformation. 
How  different  might  have  been  the  history  of  Europe, 
how  difl^erent  the  spiritual  condition  and/a/e  (if  the  word 
may  be  used,)  of  millions  of  mankind,  if  this  learned 
and  able  writer — commanding  the  ear  of  the  churchy 

*  Constit  Apost.  lib.  ii.  c.  57, 


456  THE  OPPOSITION  MADE 

eastern  and  western,  had  only  once  given  place  to  a 
modest  and  religious  doubt,  as  to  llie  soundness  of  the 
prevailing  notions.  If,  instead  of  heaping  execrable 
scurrilities  upon  the  heads  of  Jovinian  and  Vigilantius, 
he  had  mildly  considered  their  remonstrances,  and  con- 
sented to  look  into  the  scriptures,  to  see  '*  if  these  things 
were  so,"  a  new  era  might  have  opened  upon  the  church. 
Alas!  Jerome,  the  great  apostle  and  pillar  of  "  church 
principles,"  was  conscious  of  no  feelings,  as  a  disputant, 
and  when  irritated,  but  those  of  a  Torquemada! 

But  although  these  remonstrants,  and  others,  did  not, 
so  far  as  appears,  touch  the  spring  of  all  superstition, 
they  fully  understood  the  oneness  and  consistency  of 
the  manifold  inventions  that  had  been  heaped  upon  the 
church;  and  they  felt  that  it  was  a  living  mass,  con- 
nected by  fibres,  not  to  be  severed  without  affecting  the 
whole.  Along  with  many  diversities  of  opinion,  a  very 
remarkable  agreement  is  to  be  observed,  as  to  this  point, 
among  the  remonstrants  who,  in  succession,  have  as- 
sailed tiie  prevailing  corruptions  of  the  church,  from 
Jovinian,  down  to  Luther,  and  this  intimate  connexion 
has  been  well  understood  on  the  other  side;  and,  from 
Jerome,  down  to  cardinal  Cadjetan  and  Tetzel,  all  have 
thoroughly  known  tha.,  to  amputate  a  limb  of  this  body 
of  superstition,  was  nothing  else  than  to  leave  the  whole 
to  bleed  to  death.  Our  modern  revivers  of  church  prin- 
ciples, too,  give  indications  enough  of  their  consciousness 
of  this  harmony  of  the  ancient  notions  and  practices;  and 
they  are  therefore  restoring,  one  by  one,  all  the  parts 
and  members  of  the  Nicene  church  system. 

Occasions  such  as  those  now  before  us,  I  mean  the 
remonstrances  which  Ambrose,  Syricius,  and  Jerome, 
united  their  efforts  to  crush,  offer  the  means  of  applying 
a  very  satisfactory  criterion  to  our  own  religious  dispo- 


TO  THE  ANCIENT  ASCETICISM.  457 

sitions,  individually,  and  I  beg  leave  to  avail  myself  of 
this  criterion,  as  follows — 

There  are  a  few  signal  scenes  in  history,  while  con- 
templating whicli,  every  one's  sympathies  kindle,  and 
pass  over,  entire,  or  nearly  so,  to  the  one  side,  or  to  the 
other: — onr  instinctive  emotions,  the  momentary  pro- 
ducts of  our  characteristic  dispositions,  involuntarily  wake 
np,  and  choose  their  part: — we  declare  ourselves  Greeks 
or  Trojans,  whether  we  will  or  not.  And  there  is  rea- 
son in  such  instinctive  movements.  It  may  indeed  be 
very  true  that,  when  we  come  to  look  narrowly  into  the 
personal  qualities  or  private  worth  of  the  actors,  in  such 
critical  scenes,  there  may  appear  to  be  a  balance  of 
merits;  or  at  least  all  merit  may  not  be  on  the  one  side, 
nor  al!  demerit  on  the  other.  And  farther,  if  the  inte- 
rests in  debate  are  coolly  and  minutely  examined,  a 
candid  observer  may  be  compelled  to  acknowledge  that 
there  is,  between  the  antagonists,  a  sort  of  partition,  or 
breaking  up  of  truth  and  error;  it  is  not  always,  nor 
often,  as  it  w^as  when  Copernicus  and  the  church  were 
debating  concerning  the  solar  system,  that  the  one  side 
is  absolutely  right,  and  the  other  is  absolutely  wrong. 

Nevertheless,  after  all  such  allowances  have  been 
made,  we  impatiently  return  to  the  scene  of  action,  and, 
■without  hesitation,  resume  our  seats,  on  the  one  side,  or 
on  the  other,  of  the  stage,  and  give  our  chosen  champion 
our  hearts  and  prayers.  Thus,  for  an  example,  a  good 
Romanist  looks  on  while  the  heretics,  John  Huss,  and 
his  disciple,  are  being  consigned  to  the  compassion  of 
the  civil  power,  to  be  dealt  with  as  they  may  deserve: 
and  so  again,  such  a  one  waits  to  hear  the  incorrigible 
monk  of  Wittenberg  sentenced  to  the  flames,  by  Charles 
and  his  reverend  assessors,  at  Worms;  and  sighs  to 
think  that  the  church  was  then  defrauded  of  her  revenge. 
39* 


458  THE  oprosiiiox  made 

Now  let  any  one  take  in  liand  Jerome's  famous  (infa- 
iTions)  letter  to  Vigilantius,  and  he  will  soon  find  toward 
whicii  side  his  involuntary  sympathies  are  lending.  And 
let  him  not  be  prejudiced  against  "church  principles" 
by  the  revolting  malignity  which  breathes  through  every 
line  of  tins  epistle:* — let  Jerome's  venom  on  the  one 
side,  and,  on  the  other,  the  apparent  mildness  and  rea- 
sonableness which  distinguish  the  [e\v  sentences  quoted 
from  Vigihinlius  be  {)ut  out  of  view,  and  then,  looking 
at  the  mere  controversy  between  the  two  men  (the  wolf 
and  t!ie  lauib)  let  Jiim  choose  his  part.     On  the  one  side 


*  The  few  sentences  quoted  by  Jerome  from  Vigilantius,  con- 
tain noihing  that  is  offensive;  and  we  may  be  pretty  sure  that, 
had  there  been  any  thing  of  this  kind,  it  would  have  been  ad- 
duced by  his  irritated  adversary.  On  the  contrary,  his  own  two 
epistles,  5n  and  GO,  cannot  be  read  without  the  liveliest  disgust: — 
tiiey  are  the  vigorous  exp'-ession  of  the  worst  sentiments  to  which 
human  nature  is  liable.  Either  to  utter  or  to  hear  what  Vigilan- 
tius had  advanced,  Jerome  assures  us,  is  "a  sacrilege."  He, 
better  called  Dormitantius,  than  Vigilantius,  had  opened  his 
fetid  mouth,  fraught  with  a  putrid  stench,  against  the  relics  and 
ashes  of  the  martyrs.  He  is  a  Samaritan,  and  a  Jew,  and  a  mad- 
man, disgorging  a  filthy  surfeit.  He  is  a  useless  vessel,  which 
should  have  been  shivered  by  the  iron  rod  of  apostolic  authority. 
A  tongue,  he  had,  fit  only  to  be  cut  out.  He  is  a  maniac,  a  por- 
tent, and  one  who  well  deserves  with  Ananias,  Sapphira,  and 
Simon  Magus,  to  be  consigned  to  eternal  darkness — non  est  cru- 
delitas  pro  Deo,  sed  pietas.  Vigilantius  is — a  dog,  a  monster,  a 
servant  of  the  devil,  a  blasphemer,  and  of  course,  a  heretic,  as 
well  as  an  ass,  a  fool,  a  sot,  a  glutton,  a  dreamer. — WhatI  shall 
we  listen  to  such. a  one,  and  tiien  be  compelled  to  condemn  all 
the  fathers— all  the  bishops— all  Christian  people,  and  all  Chris- 
tian princes  ?  for  all,  says  Jerome,  have  authorized,  and  approved 
and  practised  what  Vigilantius  condemns!  This  was  very  nearly 
true,  and  it  was  also  true  that  the  quod  ab  omnibus,  was  a  mass 
of  foolish  and  pestilent  superstitions.  The  reader  who  has  Jerome 
at  hand,  will  doubtless  peruse  these  epistles. 


TO  THE  ANCIENT  ASCETICISM!.  469 

there  are  church  principles,  such  as— the  merits  of  holy 
virginity — the  godly  usage  of  pilgrimages  to  the  tombs 
of  the  martyrs — the  reverence,  if  not  worship,  due  to 
the  relics,  and  the  images  of  the  saints — the  interces- 
sory power  of  the  saints  in  heaven— the  expediency  of 
the  flambeau  church  vigils,  and,  in  a  word,  all  the  prin- 
cipal articles  of  later  and  modern  Romanism.  Then  on 
the  other  side  there  is  a  calm  remonstrance  against  these 
practices  and  notions,  founded  on  an  appeal  to  scripture, 
and  to  the  experience  whicli  the  church  had  had  of  the 
ill  tendency  of  all  such  usages. 

Looking,  then,  at  this  controversy  broadly,  and  with- 
out attempting  to  mince  the  particulars,  or  to  make  out 
fifty  nice  exceptions,  let  every  one  ingenuously  say — 
was  Jerome  right,  or  was  Vigilantius  right?  What  is 
the  verdict  of  our  consciences?  "Was  it  well  for  the 
church  that  Jerome  triumphed,  or  might  it  have  been 
well  if  Vigilantius  had  been  listened  to?  But  before  we 
reply,  let  us  look  to  the  consequences  of  our  decision  as 
affecting  ourselves.  If  Jerome  was  in  the  right,  and 
Vigilantius  in  the  wrong,  then  Wickliff  was  wrong,  and 
Huss  was  wrong,  and  Jerome  of  Prague  was  wrong,  and 
Luther  was  wrong,  and  the  English  reformers,  the  foun- 
ders of  the  prclestant  church  in  this  country,  were  wrong; 
for  all,  in  their  turn,  held  substantially  the  same  lan- 
guage, and  the  last  named  have  left  on  record  a  protest, 
couched  in  language  far  more  animated  and  severe  than 
Vigilantius  ventured  to  employ,  against  the  very  svper- 
stitions  which  he  called  in  question.* 

But  now,  if  in  thus  looking   at  this  controversy  of 

*  It  cannot  be  necessary  to  remind  the  clerical  reader  of  the 
terms  employed  by  the  authors  of  the  Homilies,  when  speaking 
of  these  same  superstitions. 


460  THE  OPPOSITION  MADE 

fourteen  hundred  years,  concerning  certain  principles 
and  observances,  on  the  one  side  pretended  to  be  godly 
and  edifying,  and  on  the  other  affirmed  to  be  fatal,  and 
subversive  of  Christianity — if,  in  so  considering  it,  we 
decide  that  the  English  reformers,  and  that  Luther,  and 
Wicklitf,  and  Huss,  and  Vigilantius,  M^ere  right,  then 
after  taking  this  side  of  the  argument,  in  what  position 
do  we  find  ourselves  to  be  placed  in  regard  to  the  Ni- 
cene  cliurch?  I  will  boldly  say  that  any  attempt  to 
draw  an  arbitrary  line  of  distinction  somewhere  between 
the  later  reformers,  and  the  remonstrants  of  Jerome's 
time,  merely  with  the  view  of  saving  the  Nicene  church, 
would  be  equally  frivolous,  disingenuous,  and  unavail- 
ing; nor  can  I  imagine  that  any  such  attempt  will  be 
made  by  honest  and  well  informed  men.  Common 
sense  rejects  the  endeavour  to  distinguish  between  things 
so  nearly  the  same. 

Disregarding  then  any  such  futile  plea  of  exception, 
the  Nicene  church,  with  Jerome  as  its  worthy  repre- 
sentative and  advocate,  is  seen  to  range  along  with  the 
papacy,  as  the  zealous  and  devoted  admirer  and  patron- 
ess of  SUPERSTITION,  and  as  the  intolerant  and  infatuated 
opponent  of  the  authority  of  scripture. 

Let  it  be  imagined,  however,  that  some  persons,  dif- 
fident of  the  guidance  of  common  sense,  and  foresee- 
ing the  far-sirelching  consequences  that  must  follow 
from  a  decision  against  Jerome,  in  this  instance,  will 
hold  to  the  belief — a  belief  that  they  will  not  choose 
narrowly  to  scrutinize,  that,  after  all,  and  altliough  he 
might  indulge  a  bad  temper,  and  might  go  too  far,  he 
was  nevertheless,  in  the  main,  right,  and  should  be 
thought  of  gratefully,  as  having  upheld  "godly  usages, 
and  discipline,"  against  the  liberalism  of  his  times.  Be 
it  so:  but  let  us  take  care  not  to  violate  historical  justice. 


TO  THE  ANXIEKT  ASCETICISM.  461 

Now,  when  we  open  the  monkish  legends  of  the  middle 
ages,  and  find  them  crammed  with  revolting  absurdities, 
such  as  almost  sicken  us  of  human  nature,  and  bring 
our  best  convictions  into  peril,  we  do  not  hesitate  to 
say — "  Whatever  this  ascetic  system  might  have  been  in 
its  bright  days^  it  had  evidently  got  so  far  wrong,  in 
these  later  times,  as  at  once  to  paralyze  the  understand- 
ings, and  to  vitiate  the  moral  sentiments,  and  to  caute- 
rize the  consciences,  of  those  who  came  under  its  in- 
fluence." Thus  we  make  our  escape  from  the  humi- 
liating scene.  But  what  if  it  shall  appear  that  the 
monkery  of  the  darkest  ages  does  not  surpass,  a  whit,  in 
folly,  extravagance,  and  moral  ulceration,  that  of  the 
times  to  which  we  have  been  used,  inconsiderately,  to 
attribute  wisdom  and  purity?  And  what  if  this  always- 
vicious  system  shall  be  found  to  have  shed  its  corrupt- 
ing and  stultifying  influence  over  even  the  most  power- 
ful, and  the  most  accomplished  minds?  Shall  we  not  at 
length  be  convinced  that  the  entire  scheme  was  of  evil 
quality,  when  we  find  a  man  like  Jerome,  to  be  affected, 
from  head  to  foot,  with  the  "  putrefying  sores  "  of  this 
spiritual  scrofula? 

The  task  of  reporting  Jerome's  ineffable  absurdities, 
just  as  they  stand,  without  compromising  the  sacred 
things  with  which  he  mixes  them,  is  indeed  a  difficult 
one;  but  I  must  attempt  it,  taking  refuge  under  St.  Ber- 
nard's axiom — melius  estutscandalum  oriatur,  quam  Ve- 
ritas relinquatur. 

The  ''  Patriarch  of  Monks,"  who  has  been  so  often 
referred  to  in  these  pages,  and  who  was  adored,  almost, 
by  the  Nicene  church,  and  held  up  (as  we  have  seen) 
as  a  pattern  of  Christian  perfection  by  Athanasius,  had 
been,  it  seems,  in  danger,  at  one  time,  of  thinking  loo 
highly  of  his  own  incomparable  merits.     Haec  in  men- 


462  THE  OPPOSITION  MADE 

turn  ejus  cogitatio  incidit,  nullum  ultra  se  perfectum 
monachum  in  eremo  consedisse.  And,  for  his  humilia- 
tion, it  was  revealed  to  him  that  the  unexplored  depths 
of  the  wilderness  had  long  liidden,  from  the  view  of 
mortals,  a  solitary,  surpassing  himself  in  the  ascetic  vir- 
tues, as  far  as  he  surpassed  the  generality  of  his  order. 
He  was  therefore  commanded  to  leave  his  monastery, 
and  to  go  in  quest  of  this  immaculate  pattern  of  sancti- 
ty. It  was  in  his  ninetieth  year  that  he  thus  set  out, 
propping  his  tottering  frame  upon  a  staff,  and  not  know- 
ing toward  what  quarter  to  direct  his  steps.  Fainting 
under  the  fervours  of  noon,  yet  nothing  doubting  of  his 
course,  what  should  meet  his  eyes  but — a  centaur — a 
creature  half  man,  half  horse,  quo  viso,  salutaris  impres- 
sione  signi  armat  fronlem  (what  good  catholic  would 
not  have  crossed  himself  at  such  a  sight!)  The  beast, 
however,  was  found  to  be  more  obliging  in  temper  than 
might  have  been  expected,  and  in  reply  to  tlie  saint's 
inquiry — "  Whereabouts  does  tlie  servant  of  God  live?" 
he  courteously  pointed  to  the  desired  path,  and  then  gal- 
loped off  with  the  swiftness  of  a  bird!  Tlie  learned  Je- 
rome does  not  attempt  to  solve  the  weighty  question, 
whether  this  centaur  was  a  mere  guise  of  the  devil,  or  a 
real  and  substantial  son  of  the  wilderness.  Be  that  as 
it  might,  St.  Antony  held  on  his  way;  but  he  had  gone 
only  a  few  steps  farther,  when  lo!  he  bclield,  in  a  rocky 
glen,  a  negro-snouted  urchin,  whose  forehead  budded 
horns,  while  his  inferior  parts  were  those  of  a  goat;  in  a 
word,  it  was  a  genuine  satyr!  St.  Antony,  scutum  fidei, 
et  loricum  spei,  ut  bonus  pra3liator  arripuit.  Anotlier 
friend,  however,  (whether  beast  or  devil)  presents  himself 
under  this  ambiguous  form;  and  one  who  was  gifted,  not 
merely  with  urbanity,  and  with  the  faculty  of  speech, 
but  with  reason  and  truth: — mortalis  e-ro  sum,  et  unus 


TO  THE  ANCIENT  ASCETICISM.  463 

ex  accolls  eremi,  quos  vario  delusa  errore  gentilitas,  fau- 
nos,  satyrosque  et  incubos  vocans  colit.  To  exclude  the 
incredulity  of  his  readers,  Jerome  assures  them  that  an  an- 
imal of  this  very  species,  which  had  been  brought  alive  to 
Alexandria,  had  been  sent  in  pickle  to  Antioch,  where 
it  had  been  examined  by  the  emperor.  We  must  how- 
ever cut  short  our  story,  and  bring  the  holy  monk  to  the 
cave  of  the  still  holier  Paul,  an  eremite  indeed,  who, 
utterly,  and  long  forgotten  by  man,  had  passed  nearly  a 
century  in  this  seclusion,  clad  only  with  a  wisp  of  the 
leaves  of  the  palm  tree,  which  also,  during  forty  years, 
had  supplied  hirn  with  his  only  diet;  since  the  failing  of 
which  he  had  received  a  ration  of  bread,  daily,  like  Eli- 
jah, from  heaven.  Long  did  St.  Antony  knock,  and 
earnestly  did  he  pray  before  he  could  gain  admittance. 
"  Qui  bestias  recipis,"  said  he,  "  hominem  cur  repellis? 
....  Quod  si  non  impetro,  hie  raoriar  ante  postes 
tuos:  certe  sepelies  vel  meum  cadaver!"  The  door 
opens  at  this  appeal,  and  nothing  could  be  more  sweet 
than  the  greetings  and  the  discourse  of  the  two  ancho- 
rets. While  chatting,  a  crow  perches  on  the  branch  of 
a  neighbouring  tree,  and  then  lays  a  whole  loaf  on  the 
table;  integrum  panum  ante  ora  mirantium  deposuitl 
Now  it  seems  that,  for  sixty  years  or  more,  this  same 
almoner  had  brought  the  hermit,  daily,  half  a  loaf^  but 
this  day,  a  whole  loaf  I  Dominus  nobis  prandium  misit 
.  .  .  .  militibus  suis  duplicavit  annonam!  But  now  who 
should  have  the  honour  of  splitting  it  in  two?  Long 
and  ingeniously  was  this  difficulty  discussed,  when  at 
length  it  was  agreed  that,  each  holding  his  part,  they 
should  break  it  by  their  conjoined  efforts!  The  reader 
should  be  told  that  all  these  edifying  incidents  are  gar- 
nished with  texts  of  scripture,  which  1  must  take  the  li- 
berty to  omit. 


464  THE  OPPOSITION  MADE 

Again,  to  cut  short  our  instructive  narrative,  we  must 
briefly  say  that  the  hermit  Paul,  knowing  that  his  own 
departure  was  at  hand,  enjoined  St.  Antony  to  fulfil  the 
functions  of  his  undertaker,  and  sexton,  and  executor; 
but  first  desired  that  he  would  return  whence  he  came, 
and  fetch,  from  his  monastery,  the  pallium,  given  him 
by  Athanasius,  and  wherein  he  would  fain  be  wrapped 
for  interment.  Antony  complies,  retraces  his  weary  way, 
•with  all  speed,  seizes  the  cloak,  and  returns  breathless, 
fearing  lest  he  should  be  too  late  to  discharge  the  last 
offices  to  his  dying  friend.  On  his  way  he  beholds  a 
heavenly  choir  of  prophets  and  apostles,  and  among 
them,  the  departed  Paul,  in  snow-white  robes!  Too 
true  a  portent!  The  hermit  had  already  breathed  his 
last  when  St.  Antony  reached  the  cavern.  After  in- 
dulging his  grief  awhile,  he  bethinks  himself  of  the  du- 
ties of  his  office;  but  here  comes  the  staggering  diffi- 
culty! how  shall  he  dig  the  grave,  having  neither  spade 
nor  shovel?  While  much  perplexed,  and  well  nigh  in 
despair — Moriar  ut  dignum  est.  What  should  he  see 
but  a  pair  of  lions  scouring  the  hills,  who,  approaching 
the  spot,  and  coming  up  to  the  corpse,  signified,  by  many 
blandishments,  and  by  wagging  their  tails,  their  sympa- 
thy with  the  saint,  on  the  sad  occasion:  nor  was  this  all; 
for  they  forthwith  most  humanely  set  about  digging  a 
grave  for  the  defunct;  and,  strange  to  say — as  exact  to 
the  measure,  as  the  most  expert  sexton  could  have  done 
it!  unius  hominis  capacem  locum  foderunt;  and  then, 
having  finished  their  task,  and  looking  for  tlieir  hire, 
they  threw  back  their  ears,  licking  St.  Antony's  hands 
and  his  feet: — at  ille  animadvertit  benedidionem  cos  a  se 
precaril — nor  did  the  saint  refuse  them  a  remuneration  so 
well  earned: — blessed  lions!  We  may  leave  them  then, 
and   him,  to  conclude  the  obsequies  as  they  can,  and 


TO  THE  ANCIENT  ASCETICISxM*  4G5 

shall  here  cut  short  the  legend.  Is  it  enough;  or  need 
we  adduce  more  of  like  quality  from  the  same  great  doc- 
tor's other  ascetic  memoirs?* 

I  do  not  ask  whether  the  above  savours  of  truth  and 
piety  and  reason,  a  question  which  would  be  insulting 
to  the  reader,  but  whether  it  be  in  any  way  more  de- 
serving of  regard  than  is  the  vilest  legendary  trash  of 
the  most  besotted  times  of  monkery? — From  this  rhodo- 
montadc,  mixed  up  as  it  is  with  the  sacred  language  of 
scripture,  every  sound  mind  turns  with  utter  disgust.  It 
is  hard  to  imagine  what  that  condition  of  the  conscience 
could  be,  which  might  allow  a  man  such  as  Jerome,  to 
sit  down,  and  deliberately  siring  together  these  misera- 
ble inanities.  That  a  stupid  monk,  who  never  had  had  a 
nobler  thought,  should  do  so,  is  what  one  may  under- 
stand; but  in  the  case  of  a  man  of  vigorous  intellect, 
one  is  driven  to  the  alternative,  either  of  supposing  some- 
thing like  a  possession,  or  infatuation,  or  otherwise  must 
believe  that  he,  and  some  other  of  his  contemporaries, 
the  makers  and  venders  of  the  like  commodities,  having 
forbidden  the  perusal  of  the  gentile  classic  literature  to 
the  laity,  laboured  to  supply  the  place  of  it  v/ith  what 
should  be  highly  entertaining,  and  at  the  same  time  of  a 
sort  to  stimulite  the  fanaticism,  and  to  debilitate  the  rea- 
son of  the  people.  This,  however,  would  not  be  very 
unlike  the  "speaking  lies  in  hypocrisy." 

The  gentile  classic  literature!  May  Plato  and  Xeno- 
phon  and  Cicero  be  mentioned  in  such  a  connexion?  It 
is  not  without  an  emotion  profoundly  painful,  that  one 
turns  from  the  turbid,  frothy,  and  infectious  stream  of 
Jerome's  ascetic  writings,  to  the  pellucid  waters  of  pa- 
gan Greece  and  Rome. — Reason  darkened  indeed;  but 

*  Vita  Pauli  Ertm. 
40 


466  THE  OPPOSITION  MADE  TO  ASCETICISM. 

it  is  reason  still,  and,  moreover,  reason,  struggling  to- 
ward the  light;  and  exempt  from  virulence,  from  hypo- 
crisy, and  from  absurdity.  Such  a  contrast  impresses 
the  mind  powerfully  with  a  sense  of  the  infinite  mis- 
chief that  has  been  done  to  mankind  by  men,  who,  when 
Christianity,  with  its  simple  grandeur,  and  its  divine 
purity,  was  fairly  lodged  in  their  hands,  and  committed 
to  their  care,  could  do  nothing  but  madly  heap  upon  it, 
and  often  for  selfish  purposes,  every  grossness  and  every 
folly  which  might  turn  aside  its  influence,  and  expose  it 
to  contempt. 

It  may  be  a  Christian-like  and  kindly  oflice  to  palliate 
the  errors,  and  to  cloak  the  follies,  and  to  give  a  reason 
for  the  false  notions  of  the  Nicene  divines;  but  when,  on 
the  other  side,  one  thinks  of  the  long  centuries  of  wo, 
ignorance,  persecution,  and  religious  debauchery,  which 
took  their  character  directly  from  the  perversity  of  these 
doctors,  it  is  hard  to  repress  emotions  of  the  liveliest  in- 
dignation. As  to  Jerome,  who  coined  afresh,  and  issued 
anew,  all  the  superstitions  of  his  age,  and  who  sent 
them  forward  for  fourteen  hundred  years,  one  can  hard- 
ly think  of  him  otherwise  than  as  an  enemy  of  his  kind. 
By  a  line  of  causation,  not  very  indirect,  he  has  been 
the  author  of  a  hundred  times  more  human  misery  (not 
to  look  into  the  hidden  world)  than  was  inflicted  upon 
the  nations  by  a  Tamerlane.* 

*  In  what  manner  Ambrose  and  Augustine  treated  the  opposers 
of  the  ascetic  system  may  be  seen  b}'  referring  to  the  follow- 
ing places  : — Ambrose,  addressing  pope  Syricius  (Epist.  42,  class, 
i.)  "  his  Lord  and  well-beloved  brother,"  includes  Jovinian  in 
a  list  of  condemned  heretics — Manichees  and  others,  to  whom  no 
indulgence  could  be  shown.  These,  whom  the  most  benign  em- 
peror had  execrated,  and  who  were  indeed  deserving,  as  he  says, 
"  of  all  execration,"  had  been  condemned,  first  at  Rome  and  then 
at  Milan,  whence  they  had  been  driven— quasi  profugus.     Jovi- 


MONKERY  AND  MIRACLE.  467 


MONKERY  AND  MIRACLE. 

As  every  one  now  knows  that,  in  order  to  acquire  a 
genuine  acquaintance  with  history,  we  must  examine  the 
extant  original  materials  of  the  times  in  question;  so 
every  one  knows,  that  these  contemporary  materials  are 
to  be  examined  in  the  full  light  of  our  modern  good 
sense,  and  general  intelligence.  To  lose  ourselves  in 
the  original  documents,  and  to  be  charmed  out  of  our 
wits  by  iheir  antique  fascinations,  is  to  read  Homer  like 

Tiian's  opinion  that  there  was  no  difference  of  7nerit  between  the 
married  and  the  unmarried,  is  termed  "  a  savage  howling  of  fe- 
rocious wolves,  scaring  the  flock."  It  is  curious  to  find  the  great 
church  authorities  contending,  with  the  most  acrid  zeal,  for  the 
two  doctrines  of  the  merit  of  virginity,  and  the  efficacy  of  fast- 
ing, as  if  inseparable  principles.  Thus,  Ambrose,  Epist.  53,  cer- 
tain babblers  had  come  in,  qui  dicant  nullum  esse  abstinentiae 
meritum,  nullum  frugalitatis,  nullam  virgin! tatis  gratiam  .  .  . 
Jovinian,  it  appears,  had  belonged  to  a  monastery  at  Milan, 
v^here  he  had  neither  seen  any  luxury,  nor  been  allowed  any  li- 
berty of  discussion.  Augustine,  in  his  Retractations,  mentions 
the  motives  and  occasions  of  his  various  works;  speaking  of  the 
book  debono  conjugali,  he  says,  that  the  heresy  of  Jovinian  had 
prevailed  at  Rome  to  such  an  extent,  that  several  nuns,  of  whose 
purity  there  had  been  no  previous  suspicion,  had  been  induced 
by  it  to  fall  into  matrimony.  But — huic  monstro  sancta  ecclesia 
qu8B  ibi  est,  fidelissime  et  fortissime  resistit.  Nevertheless  the 
poison,  not  having  been  altogether  expelled,  Augustine  had 
thought  himself  called  upon  to  apply  a  remedy.  This  remedy 
(with  the  bishop's  mode  of  treating  his  adversary)  is  to  be  found 
in  his  several  treatises — de  continentia — de  bono  conjugali — de 
virginitate — de  conjugiis  adulterinis — de  nuptiis — de  bono  vidui- 
tatis — de  opere  monachorum — and,  contra  Julianum.  In  the 
book,  de  Hasresibus,  Jovinian  finds  his  place,  and  his  alleged  er- 
rors are  particularly  mentioned,  c.  82,  Cito  tamen  ista  hteresis 
oppressa  et  extincta  est,  nee  usque  ad  deceptionem  aliquorum  sa- 
cerdotum  potuit  pervenire. 


468  MONKERY  AND  MIRACLE. 

a  school-boy,  who,  for  the  moment  at  least,  believes,  not 
merely  in  Homer's  heroes,  but  in  his  gods  and  god- 
desses. The  lecturer  upon  history  finds  himself  com- 
pelled, in  giving  his  account  of  tlie  ten  years'  war,  to 
strip  off  from  the  Iliad  a  prodigious  quantity  of  finery,  and 
to  make  sad  work,  with  poetry  and  crests,  before  Achil- 
les, and  Ajax,  and  Agamemnon,  are  reduced  to  their 
true  dimensions,  as  blustering  leaders  of  so  many  bands 
of  brigands  and  pirates.* 

Now  shall  we  allow  a  similar  operation  to  be  per- 
formed upon  the  Iliad  of  Nicenc  asceticism,  or  do  we 
choose  rather  to  keep  a  fool's  paradise  entire  on  this  sa- 
cred ground.  There  is  no  need  to  go  to  Gibbon's  school 
in  this  instance;  in  truth,  the  best  security  against  the 
danger  of  finding  ourselves  there,  in  the  end,  is  to  be 
had  in  the  prompt  exercise  of  a  sound  and  vigorous 
good  sense.  Renounce  this  good  sense,  and  tlien  we 
must  either  settle  down  in  the  flowery  fields  of  Butler's 
Lives  of  the  Saints — the  fairy  land  of  unbounded  cre- 
dulity; or  else  yield  cursives  to  a  universal  skepticism: 
and  in  fact,  we  are  very  likely  to  follow  a  path  through 
the  former,  into  the  latter;  tiiat  is  to  say,  if  we  take  our 
first  lessons  from  Butler,  to  take  our  last  from  Gibbon. 

Grant  it,  that  the  task  of  paring  romance  down  to  his- 
tory, is  an  ungracious  one.  Nay,  more;  If  it  be  reli- 
gious romance  that  is  in  question,  it  will  be  hard  en- 
tirely to  avoid  an  ill  consequenccj  thence  accruing,  in- 
cidentally, to  our  own  religious  sentiments.  The  mere 
circumstance  of  sitting,  lor  some  time,  so  near  to  the 
"  seat  of  the  scorner,"  is  dangerous;  but  whose  is  the 
fault?  not  ours  surely,  who  must  remove  an  offence  that 
has  been  placed  on  the  path  by  others.  It  is  the  legend- 
mongers  who  have  done  the   mischief.     If   good  and 

*  Thucydides,  lib.  i.  c.  5. 


MONKERY  AND  MIRACLE.  ♦         469 

learned  men,  like  Alban  Butler,  will  employ  themselves 
in  cramming  twelve  closely  printed  volumes  with  pious 
fables,  outraging  reason,  history,  and  religion,  and  will 
then  moor  this  mole  of  mud  to  our  common  Christianity, 
to  the  great  peril  of  the  credulous,  and  to  the  still  greater 
peril  of  the  incredulous,  what  is  to  be  done?  Some  will 
say — let  it  alone — leave  it  to  sink  by  its  own  weight;  and 
truly  nothing  better  could  have  been  done,  if  it  had  not 
happened  that  this  very  mass  of  feculence  is  just  now 
being  attached  anew  to  our  protestant  church. 

"  The  Lives  of  the  Saints!"  who,  now-a-days,  thinks 
or  cares  about  the  Lives  of  the  Saints?  or  who  would 
"waste  an  hour  in  the  serious  endeavour  to  expose  to 
contempt  such  a  farrago?  Unhappily  we  are  not  yet 
free  to  treat  with  contemptuous  silence  what  so  well  de- 
serves it:  and  why  we  are  not  free  is  easily  shown,  as 
follows:— Let  any  one  open  Alban  Butler's  volumes,  at 
hazard,  and  without  looking  to  the  dates  of  the  several 
lives  therein  related,  let  him  select  a  few  which  appear 
the  most  ridiculously  absurd,  or  which  are,  on  any  ac- 
count peculiarly  offensive,  and  I  will  venture  to  predict 
that  these  articles,  so  distinguished  by  their  extravagance 
and  folly,  will  turn  out  to  be  Nicene,  and  not  popish.  In 
fact,  they  will  be  found  to  be  translations,  nearly  literal, 
from  Athanasius,  Basil,  Palladius,  Jerome,  or  some  of 
their  contemporaries.  On  the  contrary,  any  lives  that 
may  appear  to  be  less  objectionable,  and,  in  a  sense, 
edifying,  will  be  those  of  modern  Romanist  saints.  If 
then  the  Lives  of  the  Saints,  as  a  whole,  be  worthy  of 
contempt,  the  principal  stress  of  this  contempt  falls,  not 
upon  the  church  of  Rome,  but  upon  the  church  catholic 
of  the  third  and  fourth  centuries.  I  make  this  averment 
without  fear  of  contradiction;  and  1  recommend  the  fact 
to  the  reader's  consideration. 
40^ 


470  MONKERY  AND  JIIRACLE. 

But  let  US  come  to  particular  instances,  for  the  more 
we  do  so,  the  more  must  our  present  argument  gather 
strength.     Among  the  enormous  and  revolting  fables  of 
this  vast  collection — Butler's  Lives  of  the  Saints,  I  will 
suppose  the  reader  to  fix  upon  two,  namely  the  life  of 
Paul  the  hermit  (above  referred  to)  and  tliat  of  St.  Hila- 
rion.     But  whence  has  the  learned  editor  drawn  these 
precious  morsels?     Is  it  from  the  stupid  pages  of  some 
dreaming  contemporary  of  St.  Dunstan?     No,  it  is  from 
the  vigorous   and  erudite   tomes   of  Jerome — the  most 
gifted  of  the  Nicene  divines!     The   uniniiiated  reader, 
however,  is  very  likely  to  imagine  that  tlie  po[)i.sli  editor 
has  garnished  liis  materials,  and  has  added  to  them  what 
might  recommend  them  the  more  to  tlie  bad  taste  of  his 
creduh)us  and  superstitious  catliolic  readers.     The  very 
reverse  of  this  is  the  fact.     Let  him  see  if  it  be  not  so: 
if  Butler's  version  of  Jerome's  lives  be  examined,  it  will 
appear  that,  instead  of  rendering  them  more  superstitious, 
and  7nore  miraculous,  and  7nore  popish,  he  has  made 
them  much  less  so:  he  omits  what  is  the  most  offensive, 
he  softens  extravagant  phrases,  lie  inserts  extenuations, 
or  plausible  explanations  of  manifest  incongruities,  and 
altogether  offers,  to  the  modern  reader,  in  the  place  of 
what  in  the  original  is  utterly  shocking,  or  in  the  last 
degree  puerile,  what  may  be  read.     Li  a  word,  the  popish 
editor  chastises  the  Nicene  legend-monger;  and  in  col- 
lating the  two — the  original  and  the  version,  a  convincing 
proof  is  obtained  of  the  fact  that,  much  more  reason,  and 
more  piety  too,  has  belonged  to  the  Romish,  than  ever 
belonged  to  the  Nicene  church.     It  is  not  to  be  doubted 
that  there  are  devout  Romanists  who,  while  they  might 
bring   themselves   to   approve  of  Butler,    wouhl   loathe 
Jerome  (if  not  told  that  this  Jerome  was  Saint  Jerome.) 
That  any  protestant  should,  after  examination,  profess 


MONKERY  AND  MIRACLE.  471 

to  prefer  Jerome,  or  Socrates,  or  Palladius,  to  Butler,  I 
can  hardly  think  possible,  and  will  not  believe. 

But  there  is  a  point  of  justice  involved  in  this  compa- 
rison between  the  Romanist  and  the  Nicene  biographers, 
■which  it  would  be  wrong  to  omit  to  mention.  Tiie  ex- 
cellent Alban  Butler,  an  undoubting  son  of  the  church, 
set  himself,  at  the  distance  of  twelve  centuries  from  the 
times  in  question,  to  collect  edifying  memoirs  of  the  an- 
cient ascetics;  and  hdivlngjirst  taken  the  wise  precaution 
of  closing  the  window  shutters  of  his  library,  within  an 
inch  of  pitchy  darkness,  and  having  laid  it  down  as  a  law, 
that  he  is  never  to  enter  upon  any  inquiry  which,  by  pos- 
sibility, might  lead  him  whither  his  church  forbids  him 
to  go,  he,  by  these  means,  saves  himself  (at  least  in  par- 
ticular instances)  from  t!ie  flagrant  guilt  of  putting  forth 
as  true,  what  he  personally  knew  to  be  false.  But  how 
was  it  with  the  original  compiler  of  these  same  stories? 
Jerome  writes  the  lives  of  his  contemporaries!  Jerome 
was  no  simple  soul,  believing  every  thing  from  sheer 
guilelessness:  he  had  trod  the  stage  of  the  great  world, 
and  knew  mankind;  he  had  formed  his  taste  by  the  study 
of  Xenophon  and  Thucydides;  he  was  thoroughly  skilled 
in  historical  criticism;  he  was  gifted  with  sagacity  and 
judgment;  and,  as  a  literary  forester,  he  had  that  sharp 
scent  which  enabled  him  to  track  a  dead  lion,  if  any  such 
thing  were  actually  in  the  wind:  his  temper  moreover 
was  of  that  corrosive  quality  which  tends  to  the  testing 
and  the  solving  of  adulterated  articles.  Now  this  Jerome 
compiles,  at  some  length,  the  history  of  a  certain  won- 
der-working monk,  his  contemporary,  who,  in  search, 
as  he  declared,  of  seclusion  and  oblivion,  iiad  traversed 
the  principal  countries  of  the  Roman  world — Egypt, 
Sicily,  Italy,  Greece,  Syria;  and  wherever  he  went,  he 
had  wrought  the  most  astounding  miracles,  emulating 


472  MONKERY  AND  MIRACLE. 

those  of  Elijah,  and  of  our  Lord.  If  then  these  miracles 
■were  real,  thousands  of  persons  of  all  conditions,  Chris- 
tians and  pagans,  were  able  to  attest  them,  in  quality  of 
eye  witnesses;  and  hundreds  might  readily  have  been  ap- 
pealed to,  if  it  had  been  thought  desirable  to  institute 
any  serious  inquiry  on  the  subject. 

"Was  then  Jerome  himself  a  believer  in  these  miracles? 
or  did  he  ever  ask  himself,  while  dressing  them  up  for 
the  entertainment  of  the  church,  whether  they  were  true 
or  false?     If  he  did  believe  them,  so  as  to  preclude  the 
necessity  of  any  investigation,   how  gross  must  have 
been  the  delusion  to  which  he  had  surrendered  his  pow- 
erful and  acute  mind!     But  did  he   not  choose   to  ask 
himself  whether  he  believed  them  or  not;  and  seeing  that 
they  tended   to  glorify  the   church,  and  to  recommend 
monkery,  and  orthodoxy,  did  he  give  them  all  the  ad- 
vantage of  his  great  reputation,  mean  while  half,  or  more 
than  half,  suspecting   them  to   be   impious  fabrications? 
I  will  attempt  no  solution  of  these  dillicidties,  but  will 
only  say  that,  should  I  be  hardly  dealt  with  on  account 
of  my  dealing  with  this  Nicene  doctor,  I  must  hold  up 
his  lives  of  Paul  and  of  Hilarion  as  my  defence.     To 
those  who  will  profess  to  attach  their  faith  to  these  pro- 
digious legends,  I  have  nothing  to  say;  with  those  who 
think  of  them  as  they  deserve,  I  am  safe. 

Affirmations  of  miraculous  interposition,  may,  if  un- 
true, float  any  where  between  delusion  and  fraud;  and 
therefore  they  may  involve  various  degrees  of  culpabi- 
lity, on  the  part  of  those  who  promulgate  them.  But  no 
such  narrative  can  float  between  truth  and  f ah e hood;  for 
it  must  always  be  either  true,  or  false,  that  the  divine 
power  has,  in  any  alleged  instance,  diverted  the  ordi- 
nary course  of  nature.  Now  the  Nicene  ascetic  system 
was  either  attested  by  a  copious  display  of  miraculous 


MONKERY  AND  MIRACLE.  473 

powers  (as  affirmed  by  the  principal  contemporary 
■writers)  or  it  was  not  so  accredited.  If  it  were,  then 
what  is  protestantism,  and  what  is  the  English  church, 
which  does  not  embrace,  nay,  which  has  put  silent  con- 
tempt upon  a  divinely  sanctioned,  and  most  ancient  and 
catholic  institution?  But  if  the  contrary  be  true,  then 
what  was  that  system  itself,  and  what  the  moral  condi- 
tion of  the  church  which  embraced  and  admired  it,  while 
it  made  the  boldest  pretensions — false  and  blasphemous 
pretensions,  to  the  power  of  working  miracles — miracles 
in  which  no  room  was  left  for  illusion,  and  easy  credu- 
lity?    The  reader  will  choose  his  alternative. 

The  question  being  then — What  was  the  moral  value 
of  the  ancient  ascetic  system,  our  first  reply  is — That 
it  was  what  it  might  be  consistently  with  its  pretensions 
to  miraculous  powers:  and  it  should  be  remembered  that, 
in  ihe  fourth  century,  if  we  put  out  of  view  the  custo- 
mar3^  dreams,  visions,  and  various  forms  of  mere  illu- 
sion, it  was  7ione  but  the  monks  and  hermits,  who 
claimed  to  work  miracles;  this  credit  therefore,  or  this 
stain — this  glory,  or  this  infamy,  is  the  prerogative  of 
the  ascetic  institute.'' 

A  SECOND  reply  to  the  question  in  hand,  I  have  in  part 
anticipated,  and  shall  not  pursue  the  topic  farther; 
merely  stating  the  fact  that  the  ascetic  institute  was,  in 
a  moral  sense,  such  as  it  was  likely  to  be,  seeing  that  it 
had  been  adopted,  with  no  material  modification,  from 
the  ancient  gymnosophists,  and  the  Buddhist  sages. 

*  Of  several  of  the  ancient  hermits,  there  is  reason  to  think  bet- 
ter than  that  they  should  themselves  have  pretended  to  the  pow- 
ers attributed  to  them.  The  lie  was  that  of  their  biographers. 
Thus  the  nonsense  and  knavery  attributed  by  Palladius  to  Ma- 
carius,  the  Egyptian,  are  utterly  contradicted  by  the  spirit  of  his 
writings.    It  was  the  besotted  companions  and  disciples  of  some 


474  MONKERY,  THE  RELIGION 


MONKERY,  THE   RELIGION    OF    SOUTHERN 
EUROPE. 

A  THIRD  reply  to  the  inquiry  concerning  the  moral  con- 
dition and  influence  of  the  ascetic  institute,  turns  upon  a 
consideration  of  what  has  always  been  (at  least  during 
the  last  eighteen  hundred  years)  the  physical  and  moral 
characteristics  of  the  nations  bordering  upon  the  Medi- 
terranean. Unless  we  are  resolved  to  shut  our  eyes  to  plain 
matters  of  fact,  facts  of  this  class  must  be  taken  into  ac- 
count, whenever  we  look  into  the  materials  of  the  religious 
history  of  these  nations.  Not  to  do  so  is  to  take  up  sheer 
romance,  for  solid  history;  and  moreover,  as  one  error  im- 
plies more,  we  shall  really  be  doing  the  ancient  church 
a  great  injustice,  at  the  moment  when  we  are  wishing 
to  enhance  its  credit;  for  the  same  reasonable  considera- 
tions which  forbid  our  being  duped  by  its  romantic  pro- 
fessions, supply  also  an  apology  for  its  follies,  and  a  pal- 
liation for  its  grievous  faults. 

During  the  last  two  thousand  years,  what  has  been  the 
state  of  manners  and  morals  in  all  the  countries  between 
the  thirty-fifth  and  the  forty-fifth  parallels  of  latitude,  and 
between  the  Caspian  and  the  Atlantic?  These  zephyr- 
breathing  and  garden  lands  of  the  world  have  presented, 
throughout  this  course  of  time  (or  only  with  partial  and 
transient  exceptions)  a  social  condition  intimately  dis- 
ordered by  tlie  want  of  moral  tone;  and  parallel  with  this 
ill  habit  of  the  social  mass,  there  has  run  on  a  religion 
which,  while  it  has  very  faintly  aflfected  the  many,  or  to 
any  good  purpose,  has  spent  its  force  upon  a  iew,  and 

of  these  good  men  who  patched  up  the  legend  of  their  "  virtues," 
as  soon  as  they  were  gone. 


OF  SOUTHERN  EUROPE.  475 

these  few  so  removed  by  artificial  distinctions  from  their 
fellows,  as  to  do  little  or  no  good,  by  their  example. 
Throughout  these  countries,  and  during  this  lapse  of  ages, 
there  have  been  the  extremes  in  morals,  but  no  mean. 

The  philosophy  of  the  moral,  political,  and  religious 
history  of  southern  Europe,  turns  upon  this  very  fact. 
Northward  of  the  forty-fifth  parallel  (in  Europe)  may  be 
found — a  generally  diffused  animal  health,  and  a  physi- 
cal robustness — and  a  wide  middle  class  in  society — and 
a  breadth  of  opinion  and  feeling — and  a  soberness  and 
mild  liberality  of  judgment,  and  a  dislike,  and  an  avoid- 
ance of,  enormities  of  conduct,  and  sentiment;  none  of 
which  important  elements  of  national  well-being  can  be 
predicted  of  the  south. 

Before  the  absolute  moral  merit  of  the  nations,  re- 
spectively, who  occupy  these  two  geographical  bands, 
can  be  ascertained,  many  intricate  questions  must  be 
gone  into ;  but  mean  time,  the  characteristics ,  above 
stated,  remain  undisturbed.  And  then,  if,  on  this  ground, 
the  nineteenth  century  is  to  be  compared  with  the  third 
or  fourth,  it  will  appear  that  the  difference  which  marks 
the  lapse  of  time,  attaches  almost  entirely  to  the  north  of 
Europe,  where  every  thing,  in  that  interval  of  time,  has 
been  regenerated,  or  absolutely  created:  M'hile  the  south, 
amid  many  apparent  revolutions,  has  remained  substan- 
tially the  same — physically,  morally,  and  religiously. 
Indeed,  whenever  the  ancient  and  the  modern  M-orlds 
are  compared  (and  hy  ancient,  I  now  intend  the  declining 
period  of  the  Roman  empire)  the  difl?"erence  discoverable 
is  such  as  results,  chiefly  from  that  creation  of  a  broad 
mean,  in  the  social,  political,  and  religious  spheres, 
which  has  come  about  in  northern  Europe,  during  the 
last  five  centuries. 

The  tendency  of  (pure)  Christianity  is  always  to  create 


476  MONKERY,  THE  RELIGION 

a  mean  in  socielj^  or  as  we  may  say,  to  consolidate  and 
extend  the  political,  social,  and  moral  terra  firma,  or 
wide  continent  of  common  interests,  and  ordinary  or 
standard  sentiments.  AYherever  the  gospel  is  to  get  a 
footing  in  a  country,  the  proclamation  is  of  this  sort, — 
"  Prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  Lord,  make  his  paths 
straight;  every  valley  shall  be  filled,  and  every  mountain 
and  hill  shall  be  brought  low,  and  the  crooked  shall  be 
made  straight,  and  the  rough  ways  shall  be  made  smooth." 
Not  indeed  that  Christianity  is  a  levelling  doctrine,  in 
the  cant,  modern  sense  of  the  term;  but  yet  its  gradual 
operation  is  to  call  into  existence  a  mean,  wherein,  and 
whereupon,  the  extremes  of  high  and  low  may  meet, 
and  be  reconciled.  Let  a  pure  Christianity  now  take  its 
course  in  Turkey,  and  what  would  be  the  political  and 
social  consequence,  after  a  {e\v  years,  but  to  blend  the 
discordant  elements  of  the  national  system;  and  first  to 
create,  and  then  to  empower,  a  middle  class,  and  a  mid- 
dle doctrine,  and  a  middle  influence,  which  should  at 
once  elevate  the  degraded,  and  chastise  and  control  the 
proud?  In  this  happy  sense  Christ's  doctrine  is  indeed 
revolutionary. 

Christianity  was,  in  fact,  just  about  to  work  this  its  pro- 
per effect  upon  the  Roman  world,  and  was  making  a  hap- 
py commencement  by  putting  woman  into  her  long  lost 
place,  and  by  giving  her  personal  virtue,  and  reverence 
and  influence,  without  which,  as  there  is  no  healthy  condi- 
tion of  the  domestic  system,  so  there  can  be  no  national 
virtue,  or  liberty,  or  elevation  of  character.  This  happy 
change  was  commencing,  when  the  ascetic  fanaticism 
came  in;  first.,  to  poison  the  domestic  system,  at  the 
core,  by  its  hypocritical  prudery,  and  its  consequent  se- 
paration of  the  sexes;  and  secondly,  to  turn  off  the  fer- 
tilizing current  of  the  most  powerful  and  elevated  senti- 


OF  SOUTHERN  EUROPE.  477 

ments  from  the  field  of  common  life,  and  to  throw  them 
all  into  the  waste-pipe  which  emptied  itself  upon  the 
wilderness.  We  use  no  tigure,  or  a  figure  only  in  the 
terms,  when  we  say  tliat  the  mighty  waters  of  Christian 
moral  influence,  which  would  have  renovated  the  Roman 
world,  and  have  saved  the  barbarism  of  a  thousand  years, 
was,  by  the  ascetic  institute,  shed  over  the  horrid  sands 
of  Egypt  and  Arabia — there  to  be  lost  for  ever! 

It  was  as  if,  on  a  rich  and  virgin  soil,  favoured  by  the 
sun,  one  were  to  find  the  plough,  and  the  spade,  and  the 
various  implements  of  husbandry,  employed,  by  a  stupid 
race,  not  upon  the  teeming  lands,  but  in  vainly  enscalp- 
ing  the  surface  of  rocks,  and  in  bootlessly  furrowing  the 
faithless  sands  of  the  shore!  Such,  in  a  word,  was  that 
perversion  of  the  moral  force  of  the  gospel  which  was 
imbodied  in  the  ancient  asceticism.  Southern  Europe 
was  therefore  left  to  be  southern  Europe  still,  for  ano- 
ther cycle  of  centuries,  and  monkish  fanaticism,  with  its 
celibacy  and  its  fastings,  has  continued  now  these  fifteen 
hundred  years,  to  be  the  grim  antithesis  of  a  wide-spread 
dissoluteness  of  manners.  In  Portugal,  Spain,  the  south 
of  France,  Italy,  Sicily,  and  the  islands  about,  during  all 
this  lapse  of  time,  while  very  few  temperate  and  virtu- 
ous husbands  and  wives  have  blessed  the  common  walks 
of  life,  monks  and  nuns,  of  ambiguous  character,  have 
swarmed  from  religious  houses.  Little  or  no  national 
morality  has  been  seen  there;  but  more  than  enough  of 
the  madman's  imitation  of  virtue  and  piety.  Through- 
out these  countries,  and  during  these  ages,  few  families 
have  been  blessed  with  purity  and  peace;  but  miracles 
have  been  a  going  on  all  hands;  the  green  leaf  and  sweet 
fruits  of  piety  have  not  covered  the  fields;  but  the  secu- 
lars and  regulars,  like  a  perpetual  visitation  of  locusts, 
have  brooded  on  the  waste. 
41 


478  MONKERY,  THE  RELIGION 

In  passing,  fresh  and  fuU-franght  with  English  feel- 
ings, from  our  northern  latitudes  to  the  south  or  Europe, 
every  one  feels  strongly  that  the  degrading  superstition 
of  the  common  people  is  not  a  doctrine  and  practice  that 
have  invaded  these  countries,  oppressing  and  corrupting 
the  social  system,  but  rather,  that  it  is  the  spontaneous 
and  congenial  religion  of  races  distinguished  by  physical 
debility,  by  relaxation  of  principle,  by  abjectness  of  soul, 
by  ferocity,  and  by  actual  debauchery.  Tiie  gospel, 
even  now,  would  indeed  bring  in  upon  these  very  peo- 
ple, the  energy  of  moral  health,  and  it  would  have  done 
so  in  the  times  of  Diocletian;  but  those  who  were  then 
intrusted  with  it,  mistook  its  spirit,  and  in  holding  fortli 
a  crazed  asceticism  as  the  only  genuine  virtue,  they  left 
the  mass  of  the  people  just  such  as  they  found  it — de- 
bauched, ferocious,  superstitious;  and  such,  with  tran- 
sient exceptions,  have  they  continued,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  very  same  system,  from  that  time  to  this. 

Beside  many  difljercnces,  affecting  the  mere  surface 
of  society,  and  which  belong  to  our  general  civilization, 
as  distinguishing  modern  from  ancient  southern  Europe, 
there  is  one  moral  and  ecclesiastical  point  of  contrast, 
which  I  would  not  overlook;  and  it  is  this — The  church, 
in  the  fourth  century,  was  moving  down  a  declivity: 
whereas  at  present,  and  long  since,  it  has  reached  its 
point  of  lowest  depression,  upon  a  dead  level.  Now,  so 
long  as  this  decline  was  in  progress,  all  persons  of  fer- 
vent mind,  conscious  of  the  general  movement,  struggled 
mightily  to  arrest  it.  This  eager  and  anxious  struggle 
is  then  that  which  gives  vehemence  and  animation  to  the 
hortatory  compositions  of  the  Nicene  age.  The  great 
preachers  and  writers,  whom  we  have  occasion  so  fre- 
quently to  name,  stood  midway,  and  breast-high  in  the 
torrent;  and  how  passionately  do  they  contend  for  their 
footing,  and  how  manfully  do  they  fight  the  billows' 


OF  SOUTHERN  EUROPE.  479 

There  was^  therefore,  a  resistance,  an  agony,  an  ani- 
mation belonging  to  the  church  in  the  fourth  century, 
which  do  not  belong  to  it  (in  the  same  countries)  at  pre- 
sent. Yet  it  would  be  going  much  too  far  to  affirm  that 
the  moral  condition  of  the  mass  of  society  was  better 
then  than  it  is  now,  on  the  same  soils.  There  is  an  abun- 
dance of  evidence  proving  the  extreme  corruption  of 
manners  in  the  era  now  in  question;  nor  can  it  be  re- 
quisite, in  this  place,  to  enlarge  upon  so  trite  a  subject. 
It  is,  therefore,  a  sheer  illusion — although  it  be  one  easily 
followed,  which  would  assume  our  northern  and  English 
notions  of  morality — the  morality  of  our  sober  middle 
classes,  and  then,  attributing  any  such  state  of  things  to 
the  social  system  in  the  fourth  century,  and  to  the  na- 
tions bordering  the  Mediterranea.n,  imagine  that  the  as- 
cetic virtues  of  those  times  stood  high  above  any  such 
level  of  morals.  In  taking  cur  idea  of  the  Nicene  mo- 
nastic life  from  the  romantic  descriptions  given  of  it  by 
its  credulous  admirers,  we  think  of  it  as  an  obelisk, 
pointing  to  the  skies,  the  base  of  which  rested  on  firm 
level  ground,  and  on  a  ground  of  general  virtue  and 
piety.  It  was  in  fact  no  such  thing: — the  Nicene  asce- 
ticism rose  out  of  a  bog,  and  it  barely  kept  its  apex  above 
the  wide-spread  corruption:  or  it  was  like  these  monu- 
ments of  Egyptian  magnificence  which  just  peep  out  of 
the  deluge  of  sand  that  has  long  smothered  the  glory  of 
so  many  temples  and  palaces. 

The  ancient  ascetic  virtue,  far  from  being  lofty  abso- 
lutely, was  barely  so  relatively;  and  indeed,  if  we  are 
to  trust  some  of  its  best  informed  advocates,  it  had  ac- 
tually worked  itself  down  a  good  way  below  the  general 
level  of  decency,  temperance,  and  continence.  It  was 
therefore  very  far  from  being,  what  we  are  likely  to 
imagine  it  to  have  been,  when  we  read  carefully  selected 
specimens  of  ascetic  piety. 


480        MORAL  QUALITY  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE, 


MORAL  QUALITY  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTI- 
TUTE, AS  IT  AFFECTED  THE  MONKS 
THEMSELVES. 

The  evidence  of  history  forgotten,  and  our  better 
Christian  notions  laid  aside,  it  is  then  easy  for  an  ardent 
and  serious  mind  to  follow  the  hermit  into  his  wilder- 
ness, or  the  monk  into  his  cloister,  with  a  vivid  sympa- 
thy. In  fact,  the  real  difficulty  with  persons  of  imagi- 
native temperament,  is  to  repress  that  yearning  of  the 
soul  for  seclusion  and  meditation,  which  impels  them  to 
enter  upon  the  same  flowery  path.  There  are  those,  and 
it  is  more  than  a  very  few,  to  whom  the  course  of  self- 
denial  is — the  continuing  to  live  in  the  midst  of  the  tur- 
moil, the  duties,  and  the  enjoyments  of  common  life; 
and  to  whom  the  course  of  self-indulgence  would  be  that 
of  dreaming  existence  away  in  a  cloister,  or  on  the  sunny 
side  of  a  mountain,  far  remote  from  the  liaunts  of  man. 
He  is  the  Epicurean,  who  surrenders  himself  to  the 
leading  of  his  personal  tastes,  without  regard  to  duty,  or 
to  the  welfare  of  others:  now,  these  tastes  may  be  of  a 
sensual  kind,  or  they  may  be  imaginative,  or  they  may 
be  intellectual,  or  tliey  may  be  a  mixture  of  all,  and  we 
may  call  them  religious;  but  surely  a  wonderful  mistake 
rests  with  those  who,  while  they  are  giving  an  unbridled 
swing  to  their  particular  inclinations  as  contemplatists  or 
intellectualists,  and  are  leaving  the  world  to  go  its  own 
way;  yet  speak  disdainfully  of  the  glutton,  or  of  the  vo- 
luptuous, as  Epicureans,  and  speak  boastfully  of  them- 
selves as  self-denying  men!  A  poor  proof  of  self-denial, 
surely,  to  wear  a  filthy  hair  shirt,  and  to  wait  until  after 
sunset  for  one's  breakfast,  if,  in  doing  so,  a  man  tho- 
roughly pleases  himself,  and  no  one  else!     No  voluptu- 


AS  IT  AFFECTED  THE   MONKS  THEMSELVES.         481 

ary  is  so  uniform  or  so  thorough-going  in  self-pleasing, 
as  the  hermit,  who,  while  he  permits  some  charitable 
dupe  to  bring  him  his  weekly  rations  of  bread,  makes  it 
his  glory  never  to  see,  to  speak  to,  or  to  thank  his  bene- 
factor. 

The  capital  illusions  of  the  anchoret  being  duly  al- 
lowed for,  then  it  is  easy  to  believe  that  he  may  have 
had  his  virtues,  of  a  certain  sort,  and  his  devotion,  too, 
and  his  high-wrought  unearthliness:  but,  then,  no  de- 
scriptions which  we  may  meet  with  of  the  loftiness  or 
of  the  deliciousness  of  the  anchoretic  or  monastic  life, 
ought  for  a  moment  to  make  us  forget  its  inherent  sel- 
fishness, and  its  direct  contrariety  to  the  spirit  and  pre- 
cepts of  the  gospel.  The  institute  can  never  be  proved 
to  be  abstractedly  good,  by  any  amount  of  this  sort  of 
incidental  recommendation;  and  it  is  clear  that  what- 
ever recommendations,  of  this  sort,  we  may  allow  to 
have  attached  to  the  early  ascetic  life,  attach  much  more 
decisively,  and  with  fewer  drawbacks,  to  the  institute  as 
we  find  it  regulated  in  later  times,  and  when  it  came 
under  the  eye  of  the  Romish  church. 

To  any  then  who  would  indignantly  ask — "What!  do 
you  make  no  account  of  the  pure  and  holy  lives  of  mul- 
titudes of  the  ancient  solitaries?"  We  may  reply — Yes, 
we  make  much  of  them,  even  after  we  have  righted  the 
balance  by  considering  how  much  selfishness,  and  how 
much  delusion,  entered  into  the  whole  system.  But  then 
we  ought  to  make  still  more  account  of  what  is  really 
more  pure  and  holy,  and  is  far  less  open  to  suspicion, 
and  is  better  relieved  by  instances  of  learning  and  uti- 
lity, I  mean  the  monkery  of  modern  times.  As  to  any 
practical  inference,  drawn  from  the  assumed  sanctity 
of  the  ancient  solitaries,  in  favour  of  the  system^  a,  for- 
41* 


483        MORAL  QUALITY  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE, 

tiori  may  such  an  inference  be  made  good  in  favour  of 
the  Romish  monastic  orders.  If,  then,  this  hair-cloth 
Epicureanism  is  to  be  restored  among  us,  it  would  be 
idle  to  think  that  we  could  do  better  than  follow  the  mo- 
del of  the  Benedictines,  or  the  Franciscans.* 

It  is,  however,  necessary  to  descend  a  little  farther 
toward  particulars.  With  this  view  I  will  now  offer 
some  considerations,  and  adduce  some  evidence,  tending 
to  exhibit  the  moral  quality  of  the  ascetic  institute  ac- 
cording to  its  Theory,  and  assuming  it  to  have  been 
what  its  authors  intended,  and  as  good  in  fact  as  some  of 
its  admirers  represent  it  to  have  been.  We  must  after- 
wards inquire  what  its  moral  inlluence  was  under  its 
actual  condition;  and  under  each  of  these  heads  we  must 
advert,  on  the  one  hand  to  tlie  case  of  those  who  came 
within  the  enchanted  circle,  and  on  the  oilier,  to  that  of 
those  who  stood  without  it. 

I  here  substitute  the  phrase — the  ascetic  institute — it 
being  remembered  that  celibacy  was  the  i)rime  article  of 
that  institute;  the  more  comprehensive  term  being  em- 
ployed, because  it  is  not  practicable  so  to  analyze  the 
moral  result  of  the  entire  system,  as  to  be  able  to  assign 
its  precise  amount  of  influence,  in  the  general  product, 
to  the  celibacy  as  distinguished  from  the  abstinences,  the 
mortifications,  the  seclusions,  and  the  other  observances 
of  the  monastic  life. 

The  greatest  possible  advantage  is  given  to  the  Nicene 
asceticism  by  deriving  our  notions  of  its  TiiEORvt  from 

*  "  By  all  which  I  have  ever  read  of  tlie  old,  and  have  seen  of 
the  modern  monks,  I  take  the  preference  to  be  clearly  due  to  the 
last,  as  having  a  more  regular  discipline,  more  good  learning, 
and  less  superstition  among  them  than  the  first." — Middleton. 

t  By  Theory  I  mean  the  system  entire — contemplative,  and 
practical,  as  imbodied  in  the  Monastic  Constitutions,  and  in  Ba- 
sil's ascetic  treatises  and  epistles. 


AS  IT  AFFECTED  THE  MONKS  THEMSELVES.  483 

the  writings  of  Basil,  inasmuch  as  this  eminent  man 
leaves  out  of  his  system  many  of  those  offensive  enormi- 
ties which  attached  to  it  as  practised  in  Egypt  and  Syria; 
and  at  the  same  time  he  includes  many  excellencies  and 
embellishments  which  others  did  not  allow. 

Take  this  scheme  of  life,  then,  at  the  best,  and  sup- 
posing it  exempt  from  all  suspicion,  it  is,  in  its  very 
idea,  a  moral  suicide.  The  suicide  violates  the  often 
quoted  rule — non  est  injussu  imperatoris,  &c,,  by  the 
sword  or  the  rope;  the  ascetic  does  so  as  effectually  by 
his  vow.  Under  colour  of  piety,  the  monastic  system 
is  a  course  of  contumacy  towards  the  government  of 
God;  or  a  wilful  and  captious  rejection  of  the  part  as- 
signed to  a  man,  and  the  taking  up,  without  leave,  ano- 
ther part,  in  compliance  with  a  fastidious,  infirm,  self- 
indulgent,  or  morose  temper.  It  was  a  behaviour  like 
that  of  a  humoured  and  fractious  child,  who  will  be  very 
good  just  so  long  as  you  allow  him  to  please  himself, 
and  to  sit  sullen  in  a  corner,  but  who  breaks  out  into 
passion  the  moment  you  attempt  to  control  him.  As  the 
ascetic  had  set  out  with  a  total  misapprehension  of  the 
spirit  of  Christianity  and  of  the  scheme  of  salvation,  so 
did  he  fall  into  the  most  extreme  error  in  regard  to  the 
very  nature  of  virtue,  which  is  not  a  celestial  phantasy, 
that  may  be  realized  if  a  man  is  allowed  to  shape  every 
thing  about  him  to  his  mind,  but  a  terrestrial  excellence, 
consisting  in  the  adherence  to  fixed  principles,  under  ex- 
ternal circumstances  of  whatever  kind,  and  even  the 
most  disadvantageous.  This  is  the  very  turning  point 
in  the  discrimination  between  real  virtue  and  every  sort 
of  counterfeit,  that  it  is — the  acting  uniformly,  or  with 
an  invariable  purpose,  under  and  amidst  all  diversities, 
and  those  the  most  perplexing,  of  external  circumstances; 
or,  as  we  technically  say,  "temptations."     "I  will  be 


484        MORAL  QUALITY  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE, 

virtuous,"  says  the  ascetic,  "  if  only  you  will  let  me 
chalk  out  my  own  path."  While  those  who  alone  really 
deserve  to  be  called  virtuous  are  confronting  every  spe- 
cies of  difficulty,  opposition,  and  seduction,  upon  the 
rugged  common  of  the  open  world,  the  nice  ascetic  turns 
off  upon  a  level  gravel-walk,  between  two  walls,  and 
there,  forsooth,  he  too  will  be  virtuous! 

An  inquiry,  therefore,  concerning  the  moral  quality  of 
the  ascetic  scheme,  according  to  its  llieory,  might  fairly 
be  cut  sliort  by  the  previous  exception — There  can  be 
no  virtue  of  a  genuine  sort  in  a  system  of  conduct  which 
allows  a  man  to  evade  whatever  duties  he  happens  to 
misldic.  Among  the  many  illusions  wliich  meet  us  on 
all  sides  in  the  Nicene  church  none,  therefore,  was  more 
gross  than  that  involved  in  the  customary  language  of 
the  admirers  of  the  ascetic  life,  who  spoke  of  it  always 
as  the  liighest  style  of  virtue.  Just  as  well  point  to  a 
marble  statue,  whether  it  be  of  a  Socrates,  or  of  a  Sile- 
nus,  of  a  Diana,  or  of  a  Bacchus,  M'ould  make  no  differ- 
ence, and  say,  "  See  M'hat  temperance  is  here  imbodied, 
what  command  of  the  passions,  what  unruffled  fortitude, 
what  angelic  purity,  what  indifference  to  the  pleasures 
and  honours  of  the  world!"  Not  so,  for  these  excel- 
lencies are  the  qualities  of  a  conscious  voluntary  agent, 
and  can  never  be  predicated  of  a  block  of  marble.  And 
so,  it  is  not  the  ascetic,  in  his  cell  or  cloister,  who  may 
justly  be  called  temperate,  pure,  self-denying,  heavenly- 
minded;  but  rather  the  man  who,  surrounded  by  the  or- 
dinary inducements  to  act  and  feel  otherwise,  neverthe- 
less holds  control  over  "  the  lusts  and  desires,"  as  well 
of  '*  the  flesh  as  of  the  mind." 

And  what  if,  after  thus  incurring  the  guilt  of  moral 
suicide,  and  after  running  away,  as  he  thinks,  from  all 
temptations,  the  monk  is  found,  by  his  own  confession, 


AS  IT  AFFECTED  THE  MONKS  THEMSELVES.  485 

10  have  become  iiie  abject  and  conscience-smitlen  slave 
of  heart-burning  impurities.*  A  Christian  man,  living  in 
the  midst  of  every  social  relation,  and  calmly  going  in 
and  out  among  the  occasions  of  common  life,  yet  prac- 
tically remembers  tliat,  "his  body  is  the  temple  of  the 
Holy  Ghost."  The  ascetic,  following  implicitly  the 
holy  Basil's  instructions,  vows  chastity; — and  in  fact 
violates  it  every  hour  of  his  existence:  he  subscribes  to 
Basil's  rule  never  to  speak  to,  to  touch,  or  look  upon  a 
woman  (unless  by  the  most  absolute  necessity.!)  But 
shall  v;e  listen — no  we  would  not  listen  to  the  ascetic's 
own  pitiable  description  of  his  conllicts  witii  "/Ae  adver- 
sary.'''' If  there  be  any  thing  at  all  belonging  to  the 
moral  nosology  of  human  nature,  which  is  at  once  hor- 
rible and  loathsome,  it  is  that  idea  of  the  ascetic  agonies 
which  we  cannot  but  gather  from  incidental  confessions 
abounding  in  the  ascetic  writings.  Is  then  the  monk's 
actual  condition — physical  and  moral,  a  desirable  one? 
and  is  his  the  choicest  style  of  virtue — is  he  the  chaste 
and  virtuous  man  compared  with  the  Christian  husband 
and  father? 

It  is  easier  to  allow  there  to  have  been  a  certain  order 
of  piety,  than  any  kind  of  moralitij,  among  the  ascetics. 
Let  it  be  granted  that,  to  condemn  the  debilitated  stomach 
to  churn  saliva  from  sun-rise  to  sun-set,  might  possibly 
promote  devotion,  but   assuredly,  there  is  nothing  in 

*  Ego ssepe  choris  intereram  puellarum:  pallebant  ora  jeju- 

niis,  et  mens  desideriis  sestuabat. . .  Jerom.  ad  Eustach.  *'  Listen 
not,"  says  Ephrem,  "  to  the  enemy  who  whispers  thee,  ov  Juvsltov 
•7ra.vG-a.7hiti  txv  Ttvpaxriv  cnro  a-cv^  ixv  /mi  5TX»/)s<^cpo-»f  t«v  iTriBvfAiuv 
trot/,"  p.  161.  Oxford.  Expressions  of  similar  import  abound  in 
the  ascetic  writings.  It  is  impossible  to  doubt  what  was  the  real 
mental  condition  of  many  of  the  ascetics,  perhaps  of  most. 

t  Const,  Monas,  c.  3. 


486        MORAL  QUALITY  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE, 

euch  a  discipline  which  we  can  call  morality.  There  is 
morality  in  "speaking  evil  of  no  man,"  but  no  morality 
in  not  spe:iking  at  all.  'J'liere  is  morality  in  not  eating 
more  tlian  is  good;  but  none  in  not  eating  at  all.  There 
is  morality  in  acting,  speaking,  and  thinking,  chastely, 
when  the  temptation  to  do  otherwise  is  presented;  but 
none  in  avoiding  those  temptations  which,  in  fact,  are 
the  least  to  be  feared,  while  those  are  foolishly  incurred 
which  are  the  most  insidious,  and  the  most  likely  to 
lake  effect.  There  may  indeed  have  been  pure  and 
holy  ascetics;  but  then  their  asceticism  was  no  ingre- 
dient of  their  lioliness  or  purity;  nor  even  a  means  to- 
ward it;  but  on  the  contrary,  and  by  their  own  confes- 
sion, it  was  always  a  greater  impediment  than  the  actual 
trials  of  common  life  could  have  olTered.  With  the 
same  grace,  and  i\\e.  same  inclination  towards  virtue, 
they  would  have  made  mucli  more  proficiency  if  relieved 
from  the  intolerable  load  of  their  "  rule,"  tiian  they  did, 
as  burdened  by  it. 

A  man  may,  in  the  wantonness  of  his  presumption, 
impose  upon  liimself  some  task  so  dilficult,  and  so  idle, 
as  that,  while  actually  making  the  most  prodigious  ef- 
forts, the  visible  result  is  little  or  nothing;  as  if  one 
were  to  resolve  to  walk  always  on  the  heel  and  the  toe, 
without  allowing  the  sole  of  the  foot  to  touch  the  ground, 
and  mean  while,  not  to  exhibit  any  awkwardness  of  gait, 
or  to  fall  behind  others:  terrible  would  be  the  torment 
and  toil  of  such  an  exploit;  and  a  man,  using  his  feet 
naturally,  might  walk  twenty  miles  for  one,  with  the 
same  fatigue.  Now  the  ascetics,  or  athlela},  as  they 
were  called,  sweating  and  wasting  themselves  to  skele- 
tons, on  the  trcad-whcel  of  their  devout  task-work,  what 
did  they  do  but  just  effect  a  useless  rotation!  So  diffi- 
cult as  they  confess,  and  so  arduous,  was  the  mere  rou- 


AS  It  AFFECTED  THE  MONKS  THEMSELVES  4Slf 

tine  of  the  religious  life,  that  a  monk  had  no  chance  of 
acquitting  himself  tolerably  well,  unless  he  surrendered 
himself,  body  and  soul,  to  the  work.  To  get  through 
with  the  daily  and  nightly  task  of  prayers,  psalm-singing, 
watchings,  scourgings,  fastings,  and  all  this  time  to  keep 
"  the  enemy''  at  bay,  that  is,  to  exclude  the  most  abomi-- 
nable  imaginations,  was  the  utmost  that  mortal  powers 
might  be  equal  to.  Not  a  particle  of  moral  force,  there- 
fore, was  left  at  large  to  be  employed  in  the  reasonable 
duties  of  a  useful  Christian  coarse.  The  As-ictjTic  was  a 
task  for  a  Hercules,  and  it  would  have  been  cruel  to 
have  demanded  from  a  wretch  thus  worn  down  by  ex- 
cessive toils,  any  thing  more  than  his  rule  prescribed. 

Those  who,  on  Christian  and  reasonable  principles, 
exercise  themselves  daily  in  "godliness  and  virtue," 
personal  and  relative,  find  that  they  have  enough  to  doy 
without  undertaking  any  such  supererogatory  labour  as 
that  of  removing  a  heap  of  sand,  in  a  sieve,  from  one 
side  of  the  monastery  garden  to-day,  only  that  they  may 
have  to  return  it,  by  the  like  means,  to  its  former  position 
to-morrow. 

From  the  general  tenor  of  the  ascetic  memoirs  it  ap- 
pears clearly  that  almost  the  whole  moral  and  spiritual 
energies  of  the  soul  were  spent  and  exhausted  upon  the 
artificial  part  of  the  system  of  discipline;  and  indeed  it 
is  but  too  evident,  that,  with  more  than  a  few,  the  de- 
fence of  the  citadel  of  monastic  virtue,  consumed  the 
entire  forces  of  the  mind  and  body.  Is  such  a  system 
then  a  wise  and  eligible  one,  and  likely  to  promote  mo- 
rals and  real  virtue  on  broad  ground?  Even  if  we  could 
believe  that  it  did  secure,  for  the  monk,  a  higher  place 
in  heaven,  the  ascetic  practice  cost  him  nearly  all  his' 
virtue  on  earth.  By  virtue  we  ought  to  mean  ^/jst;*,  in  the 
Christian  sense  of  the  word,  that  is  to  say,  a  quality  &$' 


488        MORAL  QUALITY  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE, 

actions,  and  of  dispositions,  and  habits,  marked  by  vi- 
gour, animation,  aiid  productiveness.  What  is,  or  can 
be,  the  virtue  of  the  inert,  or  of  the  imbecile,  or  of  the 
frivolous,  or  of  the  abject?  al  the  best,  it  is  only  a  lan- 
guid semblance  of  the  shining  reality,  like  the  dimmed, 
flickering  image  of  the  sun,  reflected  from  a  puddle:  and 
such,  generally  speaking,  was  the  virtue  of  the  monks. 

Let  the  reader,  after  perusing  Basil's  Monastic  Con- 
stitutions, and  those  expounded,  or  drawn  into  detail  in 
Cassian's  Institutes,  imagine  what  would  be  the  effect 
which  such  a  system  must  produce  upon  his  own  con- 
duct and  sentiments.  Consider  the  principal  elements 
of  this  system: — beside  the  vow  of  celibacy,  and  the 
other  rigorous  rules  and  abstinences  of  the  ascetic  life, 
the  monk  was  removed  from  the  influence  of  every  one 
of  those  motives  which  imr)art  energy  to  tlie  human 
mind;  and  he  was  at  the  same  time  brouEfht  under  the 
influence  of  every  motive  which  tends  to  break  down  its 
force,  to  dissipate  its  individual  purposes,  and  to  reduce 
it  to  a  condition  of  hopeless  degradation,  and  ineptitude. 

Not  content  with  forbidding  to  marry,  the  ascetic  Ly- 
curgus  sternly  demanded  of  tlic  monk,  that,  as  fiir  as 
possible,  he  should  break  connexion  with  his  nearest  re- 
latives, and  literally  cease,  henceforward,  to  know  his 
parents,  brethren,  and  sisters,  according  to  the  flesh!  a 
measure  this  which,  how  severe  soever,  was  found  to  be 
an  indispensable  condition  of  the  conventual  life,  and 
necessary  to  the  enforcement  of  obedience.  Such  was 
the  first  iron-hearted  lesson  of  this  schooling  in  celestial 
virtue!  It  is  curious  to  contrast  these  atrocities  of  the 
system^  with  the  actual  fact,  not  merely  that  the  monks, 
though  estranged  from  their  natural  connexions,  were 
used  to  buzz  from  house  to  liouse,  meddling  with  what- 
ever they  should   have  let  alone,  but  that,  whenever  the 


AS  IT  AFFECTED  THE  MONKS  THEMSELVES.  480 

opportunity  presented  itself,  these  holy  persons,  who 
had  devoted  their  lives  to  celestial  contemplations,  pushed 
themselves  into  courts,  and  palaces,  and  halls  of  justice, 
and  into  the  tents  of  military  commanders,  taking  it 
upon  themselves  to  overrule  secular  aflairs,  of  every 
kind,  with  a  high  hand.*  Thus  it  was  that  the  men  who 
had  renounced  marriage,  actually  lived  in  shameless 
concubinage;  and  that  those  who  Jiad  disowned  their  pa- 
rents and  nearest  relatives,  were  the  common  mischief 
makers  in  families;  and  that  those  who  had  proclaimed 
themselves  the  citizens  of  the  heavenly  country,  under- 
took the  administration  of  the  world's  affairs,  and  would 
be  foremost  in  the  control  of  fleets  and  armies! 

It  was  the  unalterable  law  of  ihe  monastic  institute, 
that  a  monk  should  retain  no  personal  property — scarcely 
his  right  in  the  filthy  rug  that  covered  his  shoulders. 
The /;ecw?u*«r^  consequences  of  this  rule  we  have  not 
now  particularly  to  do  with,  but  it  is  easy  to  see  in  what 
way  it  would  operate  to  animate  the  zeal  of  the  chiefs, 
the  bisliops  and  abbots,  who  were  the  fund-holders,  in 

*  "  Voici  une  etrange  contradiction  de  I'esprit  humain.  Les 
niinistres  de  la  religion,  chez  les  premiers  Romains,  n'etairt  pad 
exclus  des  charges  et  de  la  societe  civile,  s'embarrasserent  peu 
de  ses  affaires.  Lorsque  la  religion  chretienne  fut  etablie,  les  ec- 
clesiastiques  qui  etaient  plus  separes  des  affaires  dunionde,  s'en 
melerent  avec  moderation:  mais  lorsque,  dans  la  decadence  de 
I'empire,  les  raoins  furent  le  seul  clerge,  ces  gens,  destines  par 
une  profession  plus  particuliere  a  fuir  et  a  craindre  les  affaires, 
embrasserent  toutes  les  occasions  qui  purent  leur  y  donner  partj 
ils  ne  cesscrent  de  faire  du  bruit  partout,  et  d'agiter  ce  monde 
qu'ils  avaient  quitte. 

"  Aucune  affaire  d'etat,  aucune  paix,  aucune  guerre,  aucune 
treve,  aucune  negotiation,  aucun  mariage  ne  se  traita  que  par  le 
ministere  des  moines;  les  conseils  du  prince  en  furent  remplis,  et 
les  assemblees  de  la  nation  presque  toutes  composGes."— JJ/ote- 
tesauieu,  Grand,  des  Rom.  cap.  22. 
42 


490        iMORAL  QUALITV  Oi'  THE  ASCKTIC  INSTITLTi:, 

trumpeting  the  deiiglits  and  rewards  of  ihe  monastic  life". 
Vast  wealth,  by  this  very  means,  came  under  the  coir- 
trol  of  spiritual  persons.  But  we  now  think  only  of  the 
THonk,  individually.  Manual  labours  were  indeed  a  part 
of  his  daily  discipline;  but  tlien  this  labour  was  the 
cheerless  drudgery  of  a  slave; — a  slave  of  the  most  ab- 
ject class;  for  never  could  lie  improve  his  condition,  by 
his  exertions:  toil  was  toil,  without  a  motive.  Often  H 
was  a  task  imposed  simply  as  a  proof  and  trial  of  im- 
plicit obedience:  he  was  enjoined  to  dig,  and  to  fill  in — 
to  carry,  and  to  re-carry,  to  build  and  to  pull  down. 
Could  the  energy  of  virtue  survive  these  vilifying  exer- 
cises? Is  a  man  found,  in  fact,  to  retain  his  dignity,  as 
the  image  of  God,  or  does  he  reserve  to  himself  that  in- 
dividuality of  purpose  which  is  the  very  groimd  of  hi« 
accountableness,  when  thus,  or  in  any  such  way,  he  is 
trodden  in  the  dust?  'I'he  intelligible  and  stimulating 
motives  which  ordinarily  prom{)t  men  to  spontaneou-s 
exertions,  aflord  also  the  fulcrum  of  all  active  virtue. 
Even  timse  virtues  of  wliich  there  was  so  much  talk  in 
the  Nicene  churcl),  as  for  example  almsgiving,  were  ren- 
dered impracticable  by  the  monastic  rules.  A  monk 
who  could  never  be  master  of  an  obolus,  how  could  he 
practise  that  capital  virtue,  apart  from  which,  according 
to  the  authorized  doctrine  of  tiie  church  itself,  even  vir- 
ginity could  not  secure  admission  into  heavfti? 

The  demands  of  morality  are  not  to  be  acquitted 
in  single  acts;  nor  are  habitual  duties  to  be  transacted 
wholesale.  The  monk,  who,  just  as  the  reluctant  miser 
makes  his  will,  did  all  the  charity  of  his  life,  at  one 
stroke,  in  resigning  iiis  estate  to  the  church  or  monas- 
tery, did  none  at  ail,  in  the  eye  of  reason  or  Christian- 
ity;— Christian  almsgiving  is  the  imparting,  daily,  or  as 
occasions   arise,  to  the  needv,   something    which   iis  a 


AS  IT  AFFECTED  THE  MONKS  THEMSELVES.  491 

man's  own,  and   which  he  might  retain  to  his  proper 
use. 

Inasmuch  as  genuine  morality  is  the  doing  right,  when 
the  doing  wrong  is  possible,  so,  just  in  proportion  as 
the  personal  independence  and  liberty  of  an  agent  is  re- 
stricted, his  sphere  of  moral  excellence  is  narrowed. 
And  here  let  it  be  noticed  that,  although  you  may  im- 
pose many  restraints  upon  a  man's  visible,  bodily,  or 
civil  liberty,  while  yet  you  leave  him  in  possession  of 
that  liberty  of  the  soul  without  which  he  ceases  to  be  ac- 
countable, and  apart  from  which  he  can  practise  no  real 
virtue — in  proportion  as  restraint  touches  the  soul  itself, 
and  passes  inward,  from  the  visible  behaviour,  to  the 
very  centre  of  tiie  moral  nature,  the  man  is  deprived  of 
that  liberty  whence  virtue  takes  its  commencement. 
Thus,  an  over-anxious  and  rigorous  parent  is  sometimes 
seen  to  keep  so  stern  an  eye  upon,  not  the  conduct 
merely,  but  the  inmost  sentiments  of  a  child — looking  into 
his  very  soul,  that  tlie  victim  of  this  well-meant  cruel- 
ty, while  precluded  perhaps  from  overt  acts  of  disobe- 
dience, is  also  denied  the  very  possibility  of  becoming 
in  any  genuine  sense,  good  and  virtuous.  Now,  in  the 
monastic  system,  taking  the  theory  of  it  from  Basil, 
where  it  is  to  be  found  in  its  mildest  and  least  offensive 
form,  not  only  was  every  part  of  the  monk's  exterior 
conduct,  even  to  the  most  trivial  circumstances  of  per- 
sonal behaviour,  prescribed,  and  compliance  exacted  un- 
der severe  penalties;  but  an  unreserved  confession,  to 
the  superior  or  to  his  deputy,  was  enjoined;  and  not 
merely  the  confession  of  delinquencies  in  conduct,  whe- 
ther more  or  less  important,  but  every  faithlessness  or 
failure  of  the  spirit,  and  every  wandering  of  the  desires, 
was  to  be  ingenuously  and  punctiliously  exposed:  and 
this  discipline  was  to  he  carried  up  into  the  recesses  of 


492        MORAL  QUALITY  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE, 

the  soul,  until  tlie  viciim  of  it  liad  surrendered  the  last 
v/recks  of  iiis  moral  nature,  and  had  allowed  tlie  foot 
of  his  spiritual  tyrant  to  trample  npon  the  pitiful  residue 
of  those  personal  afTeetions  which  make  a  man,  a  man. 
And  this  scheme  of  execrable  despotism  was  glorified 
by  all  the  heads  and  leaders  of  the  Nicene  church,  as  a 
school  of  "divine  pliilosophy,"  and  as  a  high  training 
of  heavenly  virtue! 

Yirtue! — the  last  life  blood  of  virtue,  or  of  the  energy 
•whence  virtue  might  have  sprung,  was  bled  out  of  tlie 
tortured  monk,  drop  by  drop,  and  then  the  needless  seve* 
rity  of  binding  him,  hand  and  foot,  and  of  bandaging  his 
eyes,  and  of  gagging  him,  was  exacted,  and  after  all,  the 
wretch,  reduced  to  this  syncope  of  the  moral  nature, 
was  exhibited  as  a  faultless  pattern  of  holiness,  the 
dty^xfx'j.  of  all  excellence,  earthly  and  heavenly! 

iSiich  was  the  iN'icene  monkery  in  its  theory,  and  upon 
too  many  the  theory  took  effect,  in  all  its  intensity  of 
cruelly  and  horror,  or  in  its  sad  efficacy  to  produce  the 
apathy  and  vacuity  of  mind  and  heart  of  an  idiot.  But 
in  fact,  and,  as  appears,  in  the  greater  proportion  of  in- 
stances, every  kind  of  irrcgularitj',  and  the  grossest  li- 
centiousness came  in  to  mitigate  this  theor}*,  in  its  ope- 
ration, and  so  to  relieve  the  cold  horrors  of  the  monas- 
tery by  swamping  it  with  corruptions.  A  wretched  state 
of  any  system  truly  is  that  in  which  the  only  relief  that 
can  be  looked  for  from  the  pressure  of  tyranny,  is  what 
may  slip  in  through  the  sewers  and  sluices  of  profligacy! 
So  it  was,  precisely,  in  the  Nicene  monasteries  and  con- 
vents. To  look  at  them  in  the  constitutions  of  the  Cap- 
padocinn  bishop,  is  to  feel  amazement,  but  to  look  into 
them,  through  the  remonstrant  pages  of  Chrysostom, 
and  Jerome,  is  only  to  be  filled  with  contempt. 

As  often  as  any  stern  and  fanatical  renovator  came  into 


AS  IT  AFFFXTED  THE  ?,rON-KS  THEMSELVES.  493 

tbe  management  of  these  religious  houses,  a  return  was 
made  to  the  theory  of  the  system,  ^vhich,  taking  effect 
upon  the  sincere  and  simple-hearted,  and  reducing  others 
to  outward  decorum,  seemed  to  work  wonders.  Such  a 
reform,  just  lasting  out  the  life-time  of  its  mover,  quick- 
ly gave  place  to  the  ordinary  state  of  things;  leaving  the 
institute  to  what  may  well  be  called  its  natural  condition 
of  mingled  fanatical  and  puerile  absurdity,  of  idiot-like 
inertness,  and  of  shameless  profligacy. 

He  must  be  a  bold  Quixote  who  should  undertake  to 
show  that  such  has  not  been  the  ordinary  condition  of 
the  monkish  institute  from  age  to  age.  Or  if  there  are 
times  in  its  history  which  might  claim  an  exemption, 
certainly  the  period  with  which  we  have  now  to  do  was 
not  such  a  time: — it  was  not,  if  we  are  to  receive  the  re- 
port of  the  best  qualified  contemporary  witnesses;  and 
especially  if  we  may  interpret,  on  principles  of  common 
sense,  the  incidental  allusions  to  tlie  state  of  things 
around  them,  which  these  witnesses  have  let  fall. 

And  why  sliould  we  not  deal  in  this  rational  manner 
with  the  materials  in  our  hands?  On  what  grounds  do 
they  claim  to  be  liandled  with  a  credulous  reverence? 
The  canonical  writings  do  not  ask  for  any  such  indul- 
gence, why  then  should  the  Nicene?  But  to  peruse  them 
in  the  unrestrained  exercise  of  a  vigorous  good  sense,  is 
to  convince  oneself  that  the  Nicene  monkery  was  alto- 
gether less  deserving  of  respect  than  that  of  almost  any 
other  age.  It  would  indeed  be  easy  to  "  get  up  "  a  re- 
presentation which  should  seem  to  contradict  this  aver- 
ment. Smgle  homilies  and  treatises  may  be  picked  out 
of  the  mass,  which  would  charm  the  uninitiated.  But 
let  the  same  method  be  applied  to  a  rather  later  period, 
and  we  must  acknowledge  it  to  be  fallacious.  Suppose, 
42* 


494        iMOnAL  QUALITY  OF  THE  A«;CETIC:  INSTITUTE, 

for  example,  ^vc  tnlvo  llio  Do  Imilaliono  Clirisii,  nnd  as- 
sume that  tlie  onciipaiils  of  oloislcirs,  <roiK;r:illy,  in  the 
author's  time  were  such  as  he  himself  was. — First  lot 
us  look  into  the  caustic;  wrilin<rs  of  the  author  of  the 
Laudalio  Stultitia',  who  assuredly  will  jirove  a  safer 
guide  to  the  historical  inquirer. 

'J'here  was  indeed  a  'iMionias  ;i  Kempis  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  and  there  were  many  kindred  spirits,  dispersed 
amon^  the  inonaslie  orders  at  the  same  time.  'JMiere  was 
a  Macarius  in  the  fourth  century;  and  a ''- seven  thou- 
sand,*'  uidiuown  to  llie  world,  hut  reserved  hy  sovereign 
grace  in  an  age  of  wild  fanaticism  aiul  wi(le-sj)read  pro- 
fligacy— religious  and  irreligious,  lieligious  {)ronigacy! 
— I  mean  the  juu'dened  lieenliousnc^ss  of  men  and  women 
who,  while  making  the  loftiest  pretensions,  were  living 
in  the  practice  of  the  foulest  vices;  or,  to  say  the  least 
and  the  best  that  can  he  said,  were  so  living,  just  within 
the  pale  of  ostensihle  virtue,  as  to  show  that  their  heart 
and  mind  were  always  wandering  beyond  it.  'J'here 
will  be  false  mend)ers  attached  to  the  ])urest  communi- 
ties; hut  tiie  j)hiin  inijiort  of  (Jhrysostom's  representa- 
tions compels  us  to  believe  that,  among  the  prolessors  of 
asceticism,  in  his  times,  the  j)ure  were  the  excepted  i'ew^ 
while  tlie  shameless  j)ractices  against  which  he  inveighs 
characterized  the  conduct  of  the  many.  "1  do  not  speak 
of  all,"*  says  the  indignant  yet  cautious  preacher.  AVhat 
does  this  nu'an,  hut  that  he  did  speak  oi'  most,  when  he 
charged  the  monks  anil  nuns  with  the  most  flagitious  in- 
decencies.' 

♦♦  To  such  a  pass  liavc  things  come  now-a-dnys,  that 
a  Christian  man  or  woman  had  better  be  married  than 
profess  virginity."     Ah,  how  much  better,  could  but  the 

*•  Chrysoat.  torn.  i.  p.  30(1. 


AS  IT  AFFECTED  THE  MONKS  THEMSELVES.    495 

Nicene  clmrcli  have  understood  so  simple  a  trulli!  Not 
underslandinfr  it,  lliousands,  and  tens  of  tlioii.sands,  of 
souls  were  driven  on,  till  they  had  reached  a  r-ondilion 
more  frij^htful  than  any  other  which  an  accountable  being 
can  occupy.  'J'hc  profligacy  of  the  sensual  and  giddy 
herd  of  mankind  has  no  such  appalling  aggravation  at- 
taching to  it  as  that  wfiich  attends  the  course  of  those 
whose  intemperance  has  tl.e  blackness  of  hypocrisy, 
whose  excesses  are  a  sacrilege,  who  go  into  the  temple 
of  Cod  with  the  language  of  devotion,  every  syllable  of 
which,  coming  from  su(;h  lips,  is  a  blasj)hemy;  and  who 
retire  from  the  cliurch  to  chambers  of  wantonness,  clad 
in  a  garb  which  should  scorch  them.  Multitudes,  in  an 
early  season  of  religious  fervour,  were  enticed  into  re- 
ligious liouscs,  where  every  belter  purpose  was  speedily 
overthrown  by  the  most  dangerous  seductions,  and 
where,  deprived  of  the  invigorating  influence  of  common 
motives,  ajid  strenuous  etnployments,  and  breathing  the 
sweltering  atmoFphere  of  pseudo-spiritual  excitements, 
they  met  v.iih  facilities  they  iiad  not  dreamed  of,  for 
gratifying  the  worst  propensities. 

Enthusiasts  err  on  no  point  more  grievously,  than  in 
the  supposition  th.at  the  many,  among  whom  they  may 
excite  a  momentary  sympathetic  extravagance,  will  con- 
tinue to  be  as  absurd  as  themselves,  when  left  to  the 
gravitation  of  their  proper  natures.  Unhappily,  the 
broad  net  whi<d>  the  ascetic  enthusiasts  cast  over  the 
waters  of  the  church,  entangled  multitudes  who  were 
susceptible  of  just  so  much  of  the  crazy  influence  as  to 
prevent  their  speedy  return  to  the  common  world;  but 
by  no  means  of  so  much  as  niight  have  enabled  them  to 
leave  behind  them  its  vices. — Mad  enough  to  hold  to 
their  profession  of  celestial  virtue,  and  yet  sober  enough 
to  avail  themselves  coolly  of  every  opportunity  to  belie  it. 


496        MORAL  QUALITY  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE, 

It  is  but  the  surface  of  a  subject,  such  as  the  one  now 
before  us,  that  can,  with  any  proprieljs  be  touched  in  a 
publication  which  may  Tall  into  the  hands  of  the  young. 
Those  who  have  read  certain  of  the  ascetic  writers  will 
grant  that  a  due  regard  to  the  feelings  of  the  general 
reader  forbids  my  making  such  a  use  of  my  materials  as 
would  be  the  most  conclusive.  I  cannot  suppose  that  an 
ingenuous  opponent  would  take  advantage  of  the  pecu- 
liar difficulty  which  attaches  to  the  subject;  or  that,  pre- 
suming upon  the  impracticability  of  fully  opening  the 
wound  of  the  monastic  system,  he  would  scout  the  mea- 
ger evidence  which  I  have  actually  adduced.  A  cheap 
triumph  of  this  sort  would  be  a  perilous  one.  I  will 
dismiss  the  subject  then  with  one  remark — 

Although  debauched  manners  will  not  consist  with  ge- 
nuine holiness  of  heart,  they  will  very  well  consist  with 
a  highly-wrought  sentimental  sanctimoniousness; — for 
there  is  no  real  contrariety  between  a  gross  voluptuous- 
ness, and  a  refined  voluptuousness.  Now  tivis  general 
fact  being  admitted,  as  it  will  by  all  who  know  what 
human  nature  is,  I  request  the  reader,  in  the  first  place, 
to  turn  to  the  statements  already  made,  pp.  238 — 242, 
concerning  the  imaginative  sensitiveness,  and  the  prurient 
pudicity  with  which  Basil  laboured  to  affect  tlie  female 
mind.  Let  us  distinctly  conceive  of  the  moral  and  in- 
tellectual condition  of  young  women  fully  surrendering 
themselves  to  this  kind  of  influence,  which  led  lliem  to 
people  their  dressing-rooms  wiih  invisible  admirers. 
Then  let  us  turn,  cither  to  Basil's  own  intimations  con- 
cerning the  shameless  profligacy  that  was  often  going  on 
in  the  monastic  houses;  or,  still  better,  to  Chrysosiom's 
very  explicit  and  astounding  statements  of  the  manners 
of  the  nuns  in  his  time.*     How  stands  the  case  then? 

*  pPH  notes  at  the  end. 


AS  IT  AFFECTED  THE  MONKS  THEMSELVES.  497 

Basil  had  fomented  a  dangerous  sentimentality  which 
could  have  no  other  effect  than  that  which  we  find  ac- 
tually to  have  resulted  from  it,  namely — the  loss  of  the 
last  remains  of  feminine  delicacy,  and  a  grossness  of 
conduct  which  many  of  the  unfortunates  whom  society 
has  expelled,  would  blush  to  imitate — and  in  fact  would 
not  imitate,  even  in  the  last  stages  of  their  degradation. 

Yet  such  is  the  reach  of  inconsistency,  when  once  re- 
ligion and  morals  are  unhinged,  that  these  same  women 
— these  virgins!  could  issue  reeking  from  their  quarters, 
and  frequent  cliurch,  and  approach  the  "tremendous 
altar,"  and,  as  we  are  assured,  could,  with  unblushing 
face,  and  while  all  blushed  for  tliem,  admit  there  and  at 
the  very  moment  when  the  "  terrible  mysteries  "  were 
celebrating,  the  coaxing  attentions  of  their  monkish  pa- 
ramours! 

Whatever  may  be  the  licentiousness  prevailing  in  mo- 
dern catholic  countries,  I  believe  that  the  decorum  of 
public  worship  is  rarely  violated;  and  on  the  contrary, 
that  an  imposing  solemnity,  and  deep  abstraction,  cha- 
racterize, generally,  the  behaviour  of  those  who  attend 
mass.  The  scenes  which  Chrysostom  speaks  of,  as  of 
ordinary  occurrence,  at  Antiocli,  and  at  Constantinople, 
would  not,  I  think,  be  tolerated  now  in  any  church  in 
Europe. 


THE  NECESSARY  OPERATION  OF  AN  ASCE- 
TIC INSTITUTE  UPON  THE  MASS  OF 
CHRISTIANS. 

Wherever  a   system  exists  which  is  favourable  to 
such  a  course,  persons  of  fervent  and  moody  religious 


498  OPERATION  OF  AN  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE 

temper  will,  notwithstanding  the  remonstrances  of  com- 
mon sense,  and  Christian  principles,  and  the  reluctances 
of  ordinary  motives,  betake  themselves  to  the  ascetic 
life,  which,  in  truth,  has  many  charms  for  the  inert  and 
feeble-minded.  And  such  persons  will  say — "We  have 
counted  the  cost;  we  know  what  we  are  doing;  and  we 
think  ourselves  free  to  obey  what  we  feel  to  be  a  holy 
impulse."  Let  it  be  so;  yet  there  is  one  part  of  this 
"cost"  which  such  persons  seldom  or  never  take  any 
account  of,  namely,  the  cost  to  the  community,  which, 
as  an  ii^evitable  consequence,  attaches  to  the  establish- 
ment in  a  country  of  the  ascetic  institute;  I  mean  the 
cost  to  public  morals.  This  serious  consequence,  al- 
though seldom  adverted  to,  invariably  attends  tlie  preva- 
lence of  such  a  system.  A  few  words  will  be  enough 
for  explaining  tliis  connexion  of  cause  and  effect. 

The  motives  of  Christianity  are  found  to  take  effect 
in  various  degrees  of  intensity  upon  any  number  of  indi- 
viduals, some  admitting  them  to  the  full,  while  others 
seem  scarcely  sensible  of  their  power.  Yet  still  all,  and 
especially  those  who  occupy  an  intermediate  ground, 
feel  themselves  to  be  liable,  abstractedly,  to  the  entire 
force  of  these  motives;  and  any  one  of  these  persons, 
even  the  lowest  on  the  scale  of  religious  feeling,  may,  at 
any  time,  admit  their  fullest  energy,  and  may  move  on- 
ward to  a  higher  position,  without  obstruction.  So  it 
will  be,  if  the  natural  order  of  things  has  not  been  dis- 
turbed; and  in  such  a  stale  of  things  the  fervour  and  the 
attainments  of  the  few,  intermingled  with  the  many,  ope- 
rate beneficially  upon  all. 

But  now,  if,  in  such  a  community,  any  artificial  line 
of  demarcation  is  drawn  around  the  few  who  are  pre- 
sumed to  have  made  great  attainments,  and  farthermore, 
if  whatever  is  the  most  affecting  in  the  Christian  system 


UrON  THE  MASS  OF  CHRISTIANS.  499 

be  assigned  to  these  few,  as  their  prerogative,  then  the 
many  are  at  once  mulct  of  their  shares  in  wliat  had  be- 
fore been  common  property,  and,  so  long  as  they  enter- 
tain no  liope  or  intention  of  forcing  their  way  within  the 
narrow  circle  of  privilege,  they  actually  sustain  a  priva-, 
tion  of  almost  the  whole  of  that  influence  which  before 
had,  in  -greater  or  less  degrees,  operated  upon  them,  for 
their  benefit.  The  more  this  artificial  distinction  be- 
tween the  few  and  the  many  is  abrupt,  arbitrary,  and 
difficult  to  be  passed  over,  the  more  complete  will  be 
the  consequent  subtraction  of  spiritual  warmth  and  light 
from  the  outer  space. 

Let  nothing  more  be  done  in  any  society  of  Christians 
than  to  make  a  rule  that  whoever  professed  eminent  se- 
riousness should  wear  a  hood,  or  a  tassel  to  his  cap;  and, 
at  the  same  time,  let  such  a  doctrine  as  this  be  con- 
stantly inculcated — That  the  virtue  and  piety  of  the  "un- 
hooded,"  or  the  •'  untasseled  "  commonalty  is  always  of 
an  inferior  quality;  and  let  the  custom  prevail  of  never 
quoting  the  choicest  passages  of  scripture,  except  as  ap- 
plicable to  the  liveried  aristocracy.  The  silent,  but  in- 
evitable consequence  of  such  a  system  upon  the  minds 
of  the  many  must  be  the  almost  total  withdrawment  of 
all  efficacious  motives,  and  a  general  subsidence  of  moral 
feeling,  such  as  (if  the  few  really  justify  their  high  pro- 
fession) leaves  a  vast  interval  between  them  and  the 
many.  In  fact,  there  will  soon  be  no  middle  and  hope- 
ful class,  but  only  an  alternative  of  rare  sanctity  (if  it  be 
sanctity  indeed)  and  a  wide  waste  of  lifeless  formality. 

Such,  in  fact,  from  the  first,  has  been  the  condition  o' 
every  community  in  which  the  monastic  system  has  pre- 
vailed; nor  is  it  easy  to  follow  the  history  of  this  insti- 
tution, uniform  as  it  is  in  its  characteristics,  without  be- 
ing impressed  with  the  belief  that  the  Satanic  craft  has 


500  OrERATION  OF  AN  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE 

had  to  do  with  the  contrivance  of  the  ascetic  institute. 
Christianity,  wherever  it  actually  took  efiect,  produced 
a  moral  revolution,  so  absolute  and  so  amazing  as  to 
show  that,  if  left  unobstructed  to  pursue  its  course,  every 
thing  evil  must  give  way  before  it.  Nothing  less  than 
a  familiar  converse  with  pagan  antiquity  (or,  instead  of 
it,  a  few  years'  residence  in  the  heart  of  Brahminical  In- 
dia) can  enable  any  one  to  estimate  the  vastness,  we 
might  say  the  strangeness,  of  the  change  which  the  gos- 
pel was  hastening  to  bring  about.  The  early  apologists, 
all  of  them,  appeal  triumphantly,  and  with  the  calm  con- 
fidence of  truth,  to  the  moral  renovation  that  was  then 
in  progress.  The  kingdom  of  the  wicked  one  was  visi- 
bly shaken;  and  new  counsels  must  be  followed,  and 
new  measures  must  be  tried.  The  first  endeavour  was 
to  crush  the  rising  moral  energy  by  calumnies  and  tor- 
tures; but  these  methods  of  open  violence  only  added 
force  to  it.  What  then  remained  to  be  attempted?  The 
arch-Ahithophel  was  not  to  be  so  soon  baflled,  and  he 
presently  took  a  more  wily,  and  a  far  more  efTectual 
course.  "  If  we  cannot  fight  with  this  new  power  upon 
the  open  field,  we  may  do  better:  we  may  wall  it  in." 
In  other  words,  the  monastic  scheme  was  suggested  and 
set  a  going:  the  enemy  found  his  ready  agents  within 
the  church,  and  a  proclamation  was  loudly  made,  on  all 
sides,  to  this  effect — That  all  who  aspired  to  perfection, 
after  the  model  of  the  new  and  divine  philosophy  of 
Christ,  should  throw  up  their  interests  in  this  world's 
afl'airs,  and  shut  themselves  up  in  houses  dedicated  to 
sanctity  and  prayer!  This  device,  notwithstanding  the 
violence  it  did  to  human  nature,  took  effect  to  an  extent 
that  could  not  have  appeared  probable.  The  wise  and 
learned,  as  well  as  the  simple,  caught  at  the  bait;  and 
scarcely  a  voice  of  dissent  was  heard.     In  every  part  of 


UPON  THE  MASS  OF  CHRISTIANS.  501 

Christendom  the  regenerative  force  of  Christianity  was 
forthwith  cloistered,  and  althoiigli  the  endeavour  to  ex- 
terminate the  gospel  had  every  where  failed,  the  scheme 
which  entombed  it  every  where  prospered.  This  view 
of  the  authorship  of  the  ancient  monastic  system,  as  af- 
fecting the  moral  condition  of  the  social  mass,  I  must 
profess  to  entertain,  deliberately  and  steadily;  and  do 
most  seriously  believe  it  to  have  been  Satan's  especial 
contrivance  for  restraining  and  hemming  in  the  gospel, 
as  to  its  diffusive  moral  influence.  Not  for  a  moment 
forgetting  how  much  piety  and  beneficence  has,  at  all 
times,  been  incarcerated  within  monastic  walls,  nor  for- 
getting the  many  benefits  which  liave  incidentally  re- 
sulted from  these  establishments,  during  ages  of  barbar- 
ism and  violence,  nevertlieless,  if  the  weighty  question 
be  put,  concerning  the  monastic  institute.  Whence  was 
it?  I  cannot  for  a  moment  hesitate  to  say — "from  be- 
neath." That  specious  scheme  which  the  doctors  and 
preachers  of  the  Nicene  age  agreed  to  admire  and  ex- 
tend, was  nothing  else,  as  I  firmly  believe,  but  the  deviPs 
desperate  device  for  retaining  his  hold  of  the  mass  of 
mankind,  notwithstanding  the  presence  of  the  gospel, 
which  he  had  found  it  impossible  to  expel  from  the  world 
by  open  force. 

If  facts  were  adduced,  illustrative  of  the  actual  condi- 
tion of  the  (so  called)  Christian  nations  in  the  fourth,  fifth, 
and  sixth  centuries,  twenty  causes  might  easily  be  named 
rather  ttian  the  influence  of  the  monastic  institute,  to 
which  the  general  dissoluteness  of  manners  might  be  at- 
tributed. Let  us,  however,  consider  (not  to  look  far- 
ther) what  must  have  been  the  effect  of  the  practice  of 
setting  the  ascetic  seal  upon  every  text  of  the  Bible 
which  has  any  peculiar  force  or  stress  of  meaning.  It 
43 


502  OPERATION  OF  AN  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE 

would  not  easily  be  believed  to  what  an  extent  this  per- 
nicious practice  prevailed.     One  is,  indeed,  amazed  at 
the  perverse  ingenuity  which  was  employed  in  carrying 
on  lliis  work  of  exegetical  monopoly.     Not  content  with 
assigning  to  the  use  of  holy  hermits,  monks,  and  nuns, 
all  the  cream  of  scripture — its  promises  especially — and 
with  giving  a  twisted  application  to  every  general  pre- 
cept, the  ascetic  interpreters — I  mean  all  the  principal 
Nicene  writers — took  up  even  those  preceptive  portions 
of  the  New  'J'estament  which  most  clearly  belong  to 
Christians  in  common,  and  set  them  off  for  this  bye  use. 
It  is  tlius  that  the  rapacious  never  rest  so  long  as  any 
thing  meets  their  eye  wliich  has  not  been  appropriated. 
Let  any  number  of  intelligent  persons  (not  initiated  in 
the  patristic  chicanery)  read  tlie  second,  third,  and  fourth 
verses  of  the  seventh  chapter  of  the  first  epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  and  I  will  venture  to  say  that  not  one  in  a 
hundred  of  them  would  ever  surmise  any  thing  else  than 
that  the  apostle  is  there  intending  to  convey  certain  ad- 
vices to  the  married.     No  such  thing,  says  a  high  au- 
thority; and  this  superficial  interpretation  we  should  re- 
gard as  a  specimen  only  of  our  protestant  tampering 
with  the  mysteries  of  scripture.     All  that  Paul  here  ad- 
dresses apparently  to  the  married  is  really  said,  as  Chry- 
sostom  deliberately  assures  us,  in  terrorcm,  and  fof  the 
express  purpose  of  deterring  Christians,  male  and  fe- 
male, from  matrimony!    Marry — who  would  bring  him- 
self, or  herself,  under  so  wretched  a  bondage?    Why! — 
a  married  man  hath,  as  the  apostle  says,  no  longer  any 
power  over  his  own  body! — nor  hath  a  married  woman 
any  power  over  lier  own  body,  but  has  become  the  slave 
of  another! — alas  the  fools  who  marry!  and  how  wise  are 
they  who  rather  dedicate  their  bodies  to  Him  whose  ser- 
vice is  perfect  freedom!    The  passage  may,  indeed,  says 
our  expositor,  at  first  sight,  seem  to  have  a  lower  and  a 


UPON  THE  MASS  OF  CHRISTIANS.  503 

lenient  meaning;  but  whoever  considers  it  more  atten- 
tively will  perceive  that  the  apostle's  real  intention  is  of 
a  kind  more  worthy  of  himself,  and  of  his  argument!* 

Against  a  method  of  interpretation  such  as  tliis,  no 
principles  of  truth  can  stand;  and  in  the  use  of  it,  any 
enormity  may  readily  be  substantiated.  I  would  engage 
to  adduce,  very  quickly,  a  hundred  similar  instances  of 
crooked  exposition.  The  effect  was  to  cut  off  the  wa- 
ters of  the  sanctuary,  in  their  destined  course,  hither 
and  thither,  to  bless  the  church  and  the  world:  the  heal- 
ing streams,  turned  by  a  deep  cross-cut  into  the  mo- 
nastery, either  stagnated  in  that  turbid  pool,  or  sunk 
away  through  bottomless  quicksands.  Thus  it  was  that 
the  gospel  so.  faintly  affected  the  European  morals  as 
that  the  Mahometan  deluge  came,  where  it  came,  as  a 
cleansing  inundation.  If  Mahomet,  plagiarist  as  he  was, 
had  but  included  in  his  scheme  the  Jewish  notions  and 
usages  relating  to  women,  and  had  his  religion  embraced 
the  purifying  element  of  domestic  virtue,  it  must,  so  far 
as  we  can  calculate  upon  the  operation  of  natural  causes, 
have  triumphed  over  the  debased  Christianity  of  the 
seventh  century,  which,  as  a  system  of  religion,  had  be- 
come a  frivolous  idolatry,  and  which,  as  a  moral  system, 
or  code  of  manners,  had  driven  all  natural  sentiments 
from  off  their  foundations.  The  degrading  influence  of 
the  Mahometan  polygamy,  and  of  its  doctrine  of  a  vo- 
luptuous paradise,  just  served  to  balance  the  monkish 
enormities  of  Christendom,  so  as  to  leave  with  the  lat- 
ter enough  of  advantage  to  enable  it  to  hold  its  ground 
when  borne  upon  by  its  rival. 

To  exclude  woman  from  the  domestic  and  social  cir- 
cle, is  the  same  thing  as  to  expel  all  virtue  thence.     A 

*  Chrysost.  torn.  i.  pp.  351 — 354. 


504  OPERATION  OF  AN  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE 

truism  such  as  this,  one  would  not  have  ventured  to  re- 
peat, novv-a-days,  did  it  not  appear  that  there  are  those 
who  are  wishing  to  make  a  new  experiment,  with  the 
view  of  hitching  Christian  morals  up  to  a  higher  level, 
by  again  separating  the  sexes.  This  separation,  if  not 
the  end  immediately  aimed  at,  yet  follows  as  an  inevita- 
ble consequence  from  the  institute  of  celibacy; — it  is  a 
measure  of  discretion,  quickly  found  to  be  indispensa- 
ble, when  once  the  oriental  doctrine  of  the  sanctity  of 
virginity  has  come  to  be  preached  among  young  people, 
and  when  once  a  choir  of  virgins,  male  and  female,  has 
been  set  off  from  the  community.  If  these  unfledged 
"  seraphs  "  are  not  to  be  literally  incarcerated,  after  the 
Romish  fashion — which  incarceration  is,_  in  truth,  no- 
thing but  mercy  and  wisdom;  then  it  will  be  found,  not- 
witlistanding  the  lofty  style  which  the  senior  promoters 
of  ilie  scheme  may  think  fit  to  use,  an  utterly  impracti- 
cable tiling  to  allow  of  their  freely  conversing,  either 
with  each  other,  or  with  their  former  associates  in  pro- 
miscuous society.  The  Nicene  church  tried  this  me- 
thotl,  and  the  consequence  was — ^just  what  any  man  in 
his  senses  would  have  predicted — the  prevalence  of 
abuses  inefl'ably  revolting. 

A  middle  course  must  tiien  be  followed;  that  is  to  say, 
if  the  temper  of  the  times  forbids  the  immuring  of  the 
"  professed,"  it  must  be  silently  understood  that  they  are 
to  be  seen  in  society  only  as  spectres,  or  only  as  a  spec- 
tacle in  "  procession;"  or  only  as  the  mute  personages 
of  a  church  pomp;  or  be  it,  as  angels  of  mercy,  flitting 
hither  and  thither,  commendably  indeed,  among  the 
wretched.  But  what  has  become  of  tlie  once  happy  cir- 
cles whence  these  victims  have  been  snatched?  Not 
only  will  the  domestic  and  general  circle  have  lost  their 
brightest  ornaments — their  ♦'  first  born  "  of  virtue,  puri<» 


UPON  THE  TflASS  OF  CHRISTIANS.  505 

ty,  and  piety — that  is  to  say,  the  very  individuals  who, 
by  native  elevation  of  sentiment,  and  by  a  high  tone  of 
feeling,  were  the  salt  of  the  mass;  but  those  who  are 
left  behind,  thus  orphaned,  as  we  may  say,  are  hence- 
forward condemned  to  look  upon  themselves,  and  upon 
one  another,  as  a  degraded  class,  or  as  the  reprobates  of 
purity;  nor  can  they  {eel,  speak,  or  act,  otherwise  than 
under  the  extreme  moral  disadvantage  of  being  robbed  of 
the  finer  feelings  of  self-respect,  and  of  mutual  respect. 
What  remains  for  them  is  to  seek  indemnifications,  and 
these  are  to  be  sought,  and  may  always  be  found,  near 
at  hand,  in  licentious  or  perilous  freedoms  of  behaviour. 
The  Christian  father  of  a  numerous  and  well-trained 
amily,  finds  (many  such  may  soon  find  to  their  amaze- 
ment) that  his  "  Angelica,"  or  his  "  Priscilla,"  or  his 
"Agnes,"  having  listened  to  the  whispers  and  sighs  of 
some  apostle  of  church  principles  (whether  stern  and 
demure,  or  blithe  and  seraphic)  has  actually  dedicated 
herself,*  in  a  word,  has  "  professed;"  and  if  she  has  not 
taken  an  irreversible  vow,  has  so  pledged  her  conscience 
and  honour,  as  that  to  draw  back  would  be  infamy. — 
Let  it  be  so;  the  victim  has  bled;  but  can  we  believe 
that  the  "  Marthas,"  and  the  "  Annes,"  and  the  "  Eli- 
zabeths," of  this  despoiled  family  continue  to  occupy  pre- 
cisely the  same  moral  level  that  they  did  before? — Nay, 
they  have  been  cruelly  robbed,  and  without  their  fault, 
of  the  bloom  of  beauty,  the  grace  and  transparency,  of 
their    feminine   honour. — Thenceforward    they  are   to 
think  themselves  somewhat  less  than  chaste  and  pure; 
for  it  is   their  seraphic  sister  only,  who,  as  they  are 

*To  take  this  step  against  the  will  and  advice  of  parents,  ox 
■without  their  know^ledge,  was  an  additional  merit,  with  the  Ni^ 
cene  doctors. 

43* 


506  OPERATION  OF  AN  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE 

taught,  merits  to  be  called  so  in  any  proper  sense:  but, 
for  a  woman  to  be  brought  to  think  of  herself,  and  for 
her  to  know  that  she  is  thought  of  by  others,  as  having, 
in  any  way,  stepped  down  from  the  high  place  of  wo- 
manly reverence  which  she  once  occupied,  is,  in  fact,  for 
her  to  be  llirust  down  to  a  level  where  delicacy  does  not 
breallie  at  ease.  The  Marthas,  and  the  Annes,  and  the 
Elizabeths  of  this  family,  whose  common  sense  has 
stood  in  the  way  of  their  promotion,  and  who  number 
themselves  among  such  as  may  marry,  find  that  the  new 
code  of  morals  which  has  got  admittance  among  them 
has  drawn  a  broad  line  tlirough  the  once  united  band, 
and  tliat,  on  the  one  side  of  it  stands  chastity,  and  vir- 
ginity, and  angelic  purity,  and  on  the  other  side,  where 
themselves  are  ranged,  there  is  marriage,  not  forbidden, 
but  just  tolerated,  and  a  little  lower  down,  according  to 
the  Nicene  scale — concubinage,  and  lower  still,  the  se- 
veral grosser  forms  of  licentiousness;  and  these  fair  vic- 
tims are  then  ofiercd  the  alternative  either  of  professing, 
with  their  sister;  or — of  standing  associated  witli  the  im- 
pure.— Horrid  mischief  this! 

The  practical  meaning  of  religious  celibacy,  as  an  in- 
stitute, is — the  degradation  of  woman* — her  expulsion 
from  general  society — the  lowering  of  manners  an,d  sen- 
timents among  young  persons  universally — the  setting 
married  life  oft'  from  the  circle  of  the  highest  and  best 
motives,  and  a  general  licentiousness  ditfused  through 
the  community.  These  consequences  follow — they  ever 
have  followed,  and  it  is  easy  to  see  how  and  why  they 
must  follow,  from  the  celibate,  even  supposing  the  best, 

*  I  say  nothing  of  the  consequences  of  the  celibate,  as  affect- 
ing the  male  sex — directly  and  indirectly.  Those  who  know 
something  of  monkish  history  will  know  why  this  branch  of  the 
subject  must  be  passed  in  silence. 


UPON  THE  MASS  OF  CHRISTIANS.  507 

namely,  that  the  "professed"  generally  justify  their 
high  pretensions.  But  what  happens  when,  as  has  in 
fact  always  been  the  case,  monasteries  and  convents  are 
known,  by  every  body,  to  be  sinks  of  pollution — the 
sewers  of  the  open  world,  into  which  every  thing  de- 
scends that  should  shun  the  light!  Shall  we  dare  to  ima- 
gine the  effect  that  would  be  produced  upon  our  English 
manners,  supposing  the  celibate  to  be  restored — under 
any  imaginable  modifications — and  supposing  that,  after 
the  first  few  years  of  fresh  enthusiasm,  it  became,  in 
frequent  and  notorious  instances,  just  what  we  find  it  in 
the  Nicene  age,  as  described  by  Chrysostom's  monaste- 
ries and  convents,  dispersed  through  the  country,  would 
breathe  pestilence  enough  to  reduce  England,  quickly,  to 
the  level  of  Spain  and  Italy;  and  mean  time  every  think- 
ing man  in  the  land,  would  have  become  an  infidel. 

*'  Yes,  but,"  say  the  promoters  of  church  principles, 
*'  we  shall  know  how  to  obviate  these  extreme  abuses: 
we  shall  go  to  work  on  a  better-considered  plan,  and 
shall  be  provided  against  certain  foreseen  inconveniences. 
True — provision  7nay  be  made  against  the  shameless 
licentiousness  of  the  Nicene  monkery; — things  may  be 
better  managed  than  they  were  then,  and  they  have 
been;  and  it  has  been  found  possible  to  screw  the  sys- 
tem up  much  tighter  than  was  at  first  attempted.  But 
then  this  was  done  by  the  means  which  the  church  of 
Rome  employs.  The  Uomish  monastic  economy — none 
of  its  rigours  excepted,  is  the  only  condition  under  which 
the  celibate  can  be  endured:  and  this  is  what  we  must 
come  to.  The  learned  and  zealous  persons  who  are 
now  recommending  celibacy  and  asceticism,  well  know 
that  their  present  endeavours,  public  and  private,  can 
have  no  other  end;  and  that  they  themselves  do  not  re- 
coil from  such  an  issue,  has  become  manifest. 


508  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  MONASTIC  INSTITUTE 


THE  INDIRECT  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  MO- 
NASTIC  INSTITUTE  UPON  THE  POSITION 
OF  THE  CLERGY. 

No  reader  of  ecclesiastical  literature  can  need  much  to 
be  said  in  proof  of  the  assertion  that  the  ascetic  doctrine, 
and  the  institutions  tiience  resulting,  powerfully  affected 
the  temper,  conduct,  and  official  position  of  the  clergy, 
in  the  Nicene  age,  as  well  as  in  later  periods.  In  truth, 
it  might  be  broadly  affirmed,  that  monkery  without  and 
monkery  within  the  hierarchical  enclosure,  comprise  the 
sum  and  substance  of  church  history,  through  many 
centuries.  What  it  may  be  requisite  to  advance,  on  this 
subject,  presents  itself  under  these  two  general  heads, 
namely — the  indirect  influence  of  the  extra-clerical  mo- 
nastic establishments  upon  the  position  and  character  of 
the  clergy; — and  the  direct  efli'ect  of  the  usage  of  celiba- 
cy, upon  the  clergy  themselves,  and  upon  their  relations 
with  the  laity.  We  take  then  the  first  of  these  topics, 
which  embraces  the  following  affirmations — That  the  as- 
cetic orders — the  virgins,  monks,  anchorets,  constituted 
what  may  be  called  an  ecclesiastical  substratum^  serving 
to  give  breadth,  support,  and  altitude,  to  the  ecclesiastical 
structure — That  these  orders  were  a  class  to  be  main- 
tained, and  therefore  swelled  the  amount  of  funds  ad- 
ministered by  the  clergy — 'i'hat  they  were  also  a  class 
largely  contributing  to  those  funds;  and.  That  they  were 
a  class  to  be  governed,  and  to  be  made  use  of,  as  aids 
and  instruments  in  governing  the  laity. 

A  calm  inquirer  concerning  the  origin  of  episcopacy, 
is  liable  to  be  at  first,  not  a  little  discouraged  (if  his  pre- 
dilections are  in  favour  of  that  institution)  by  the  clear 


UPON  tHE  POSITION  OF  THE  CLERGY.  509 

indications  which  meet  him,  on  every  side,  of  the  stre- 
nuous endeavours  of  the  ancient  church  to  create  for  it- 
self, and  to  consolidate,  a  complex  hierarchical  scheme, 
which,  from  an  ample  base,  should  tower  to  a  proud 
height.  Very  manifest  it  is,  that  the  Pontifex — the  so- 
vereign bishop,  was  to  be  seated  at  the  apex  of  a  lofty 
pyramid:  hence  the  long  list  of  church  functionaries, 
and  dependents,  all,  to  the  last  and  the  lowest,  personally 
interested  in  the  support  of  the  ecclesiastical  edifice; 
and  all  looking  up  to  the  throne,  as  the  fountain  of  ho- 
nour and  emolument.  The  facts,  looked  at  in  this  light, 
give  rise  to  a  prejudice  against  episcopacy;  and  the  most 
impartial  mind  may  easily  conceive  a  disgust,  which 
would  lead  to  a  too  hasty  conclusion,  a  conclusion  not 
sustained  (as  I  humbly  believe)  by  the  evidence,  when 
it  comes  to  be  more  strictly  analyzed. 

Nevertheless,  while  we  exempt  the  primitive  episco- 
pacy from  the  prejudice  incidentally  resulting  from  the 
facts  adverted  to,  it  is  most  evident  that,  at  a  very  early 
time,  great  anxiety  was  manifested,  and  great  industry 
used,  tending  to  bring  about  what  we  find  existing,  in  a 
settled  form,  in  the  Nicene  age,  namely — a  complicated 
and  broadly-bottomed  hierarchical  structure,  which, 
while  it  furnished  dignities,  occupation,  maintenance, 
and  emoluments,  to  a  large  proportion  of  the  Christian 
body,  gave  a  decisive  preponderance,  ordinarily,  to  the 
clergy,  as  balanced  against  the  laity.  Particular  cir- 
cumstances allowed  for,  it  would  naturally  happen  that 
all  who  liad  a  common  interest  with  the  clergy,  would 
be  found  to  stand  on  their  side,  and  would  sustain  them, 
in  any  instance  of  contention  with  the  people: — the  peo- 
ple were  in  fact  out-voted,  and  having  been  robbed  of 
their  proper  representatives,  and  their  due  influence,  by 
the  insidious  absorption  into  the  clerical  body  of  those 


510  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  MONASTIC  INSTITUTE 

who  should  have  acted  as  their  tribunes,  and  retaining 
no  control  whatever  over  the  funds  of  the  church,  they 
were  either  dealt  with,  at  pleasure,  by  the  sacerdotal  col- 
lege, or,  as  is  usual  in  despotic  governments,  they  ex- 
pressed their  will,  and  inspired  some  necessary  fear,  on 
signal  occasions,  in  the  irregular  and  dangerous  mode  of 
tumultuary  proceedings,  and  of  open  violence — the  na- 
tural remedies  against  usurpations  of  whatever  kind. 

The  stability  of  a  hierarchy  (or  of  any  monarchy)  in 
its  relations  towards  the  people,  and  the  power  of  the 
single  chief  toward  the  various  members  of  the  hierar- 
chy itself,  (or  the  aristocracy)  alike  demand  not  merely 
a  numerous  and  diversified  body  of  functionaries,  regu- 
larly subordinated,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest;  but 
also,  one  or  more  collateral  bodies,  which,  while  con- 
stituting a  portion  of  tlie  whole,  shall  yet  have  a  real 
independence,  in  respect  of  ail  but  the  highest  authori- 
ties. This  appears  to  be  the  secret  of  the  monarchical 
constitution,  civil,  or  religious;  nor  has  any  monarchy 
actually  stood  long,  which  has  not  so  rested  a  portion 
of  its  weight  upon  side  buttresses.  Now,  while  the 
several  ranks  of  the  clergy,  and  the  inferior  church 
officers,  down  to  the  porters,  and  the  sweepers  of  the 
aisles,  constituted  the  bishop's  ordinary  state,  he,  and 
the  few  who  worked  the  machine  of  government  under 
his  immediate  control,  felt  a  want,  which  was  at  length, 
and  gradually,  supplied.  From  how  slender  and  unsight- 
ly a  collection  of  materials,  was  that  prodigious  mass 
prepared  which  has  in  fact  proved  the  real  prop  of  the 
church,  through  the  tempests  of  many  centuries!  A 
pitiable  company  of  desolate  old  women,  were,  if  we 
may  say  so,  the  rubble  of  the  moky  which  has  propped 
the  papacy  from  age  to  age. 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that,  in  the  ancient  world, 


t^PON  THE  POSITION  OF  THE  CLERGY.  511 

perilous  as  were  many  ordinary  employments,  now  com- 
paratively safe,  dangerous  as  were  navigation  and  land 
travelling,  murderous  as  was  war,  reckless  as  were  all 
governments  of  human  life  and  welfare,  prodigal  of  blood 
as  were  the  public  amusements,  horrid  as  were  the 
usages  of  slavery,  and  withal,  wanting  as  was  antiquity 
in  the  medical  and  surgical  care  of  the  lower  classes— 
the  average  mortality  of  the  male  sex  as  compared  with 
the  other,  vastly  exceeded  its  proportion  in  modern 
times.  And  whereas,  even  now,  widows  are  always 
many  more  than  widowers,  in  ancient  times,  the  num- 
ber of  women  whose  husbands  had  been  snatched  from 
them  by  violent  and  accidental  deaths,  was  so  great  as 
that  these  '•^destitutes''''  constituted  a  class,  so  considera- 
ble as  to  attract  peculiar  regard.  Heathenism  might 
indeed  take  little  account  of  its  widows  and  orphans; 
but  the  gospel  instantly  brought  them  forward,  as  the 
especial  objects  of  the  regard  of  the  church.  The  first, 
or  one  of  the  first  duties  of  a  primitive  Christian  society, 
was  to  take  care  of  its  widows;  and  as  the  tendency  of 
all  things,  connected  with  a  social  economy,  is,  for  what 
was  at  first  incidental  and  liable  to  the  guidance  of  occa- 
sions, to  settle  down  into  the  fixed  form  of  a  regulated 
constitution,  it  was  not  long  before  the  widows  of  the 
church,  numerous  as  they  were,  came  to  make  a  stand- 
ing class,  or  permanent  order,  situated,  as  we  may  say, 
on  one  side  of  the  hierarchical  structure.  In  what  way 
this  class,  with  others  similar,  affected  the  bishop's 
power,  as  patron  and  fundholder,  we  shall  presently  see. 
Apart  from  this  financial  bearing  of  the  widow-band, 
the  appendage  of  a  company  of  helpless  women,  might 
seem  to  add  little  that  was  enviable  to  episcopal  gran- 
deur;— but  with  it,  the  consequences  were  important. 
Give  to  any  one  nothing  better  than  an  irrepponsible 


512  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  MONASTIC  INSTITUTE 

oversight  of  the  poor,  with  power  to  levy  for  their  main- 
tenance, and  you  have  made  him  a  considerable  per- 
sonage in  the  state. 

But  the  widow-band  served,  very  early,  as  the  ground 
for  a  more  important  and  sightly  structure; — as  bundles 
of  lithe  rushes,  and  sear  sticks  are  nsed  to  be  laid  upon 
a  bog  to  sustain  better  materials.  Next  came,  and  at  a 
very  early  date,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the  illustrious 
company  of  dedicated  virgins — a  body  collateral  to  the 
hierarchy,  and  independent,  at  once,  of  the  people,  and 
of  the  inferior  clergy,  and  yet  (generally)  subject  to  the 
bishop,  through  the  means  of  the  most  influential  among 
the  presbyters.  The  regards  of  the  people  toward  the 
widows,  we  cannot  suppose  to  have  been  of  a  kind  ta 
involve  mucli  reverence;  but  their  regards — the  regards^ 
they  were  constantly  taught  to  entertain  toward  the  vir- 
gins, carried  sentiments  of  awe  and  deference;  and  this 
credit  they  could  lend  when  it  was  needed,  to  him  who, 
on  particular  occasions,  might  wish  to  borrow  it.  Thus 
was  the  hierarchical  structure,  even  in  times  of  suffering 
and  depression,  acquiring,  not  merely  altitude,  but  a 
great  breadth  of  base. 

A  little  later,  as  it  seems,  the  order  of  male  virgins,  or 
monks  and  eremites,  encrusted  itself  about  the  church; 
nor  was  it  long  before  this  body  swelled  to  such  a  mag- 
nitude, and  acquired  so  portentous  an  influence,  with 
the  mass  of  the  people,  as  to  give  it  rather  too  much  of 
independent  consequence.  Still,  however,  in  the  main, 
the  monasteries,  thickly  sprinkled  as  they  were,  over 
the  surface  of  Christian  countries,  constituted  so  many 
forts  and  citadels  of  ecclesiastical  power,  under  the  com- 
mand of  the  highest  authorities,  and  altogether  indepen- 
dent of  the  lower  clergy,  and  of  the  people.  On  several 
recorded  occasions  these  sombre  garrisons  swarmed  out. 


UPON  THE  POSITION  OF  THE  CLERGY.  513 

in  Ihonsands,  to  the  terror  of  their  opponents,  and  to 
the  effective  aid  of  their  patrons.  Can  we  then  be 
amazed  at  the  zeal  of  the  church  authorities,  in  pro- 
moting, as  they  did,  the  ascetic  doctrine?  are  we  at  a 
loss  in  accounting  for  the  fact,  at  first  so  strange,  that 
men  of  the  highest  intelligence,  men  of  learning,  and 
knowledge  of  the  world,  should  so  have  vilified  them- 
selves as  they  did,  by  trumpeting  monkish  exploits,  and 
by  repeating,  with  all  gravity,  the  most  insufferable  non- 
sense, tending  to  glorify  the  ascetic  life  in  the  eyes  of  a 
besotted  populace?  Nothing  is  more  easily  understood 
than  this  course  of  things.  We  should  do  the  rulers  of 
the  Nicene  church  a  great  injustice  if  wc  were  to  think 
them  so  simple  as  not  to  have  understood,  in  measure, 
what  they  were  about,  while  so  assiduously  employed 
in  heaping  up  the  materials,  and  in  pouring  in  the  cement, 
which,  at  length,  rendered  the  ascetic  institute  the  im- 
moveable   BUTTRESS    OF    CHURCH    POWER.      And    yct    WG 

must  not  impute  to  them  too  much  foresight  in  this  in- 
stance; for  it  is  not  often  given  to  men  to  sit  down  and 
deliberately  to  devise  those  schemes  of  power  which  are 
to  be  ripened  in  a  long  course  of  years.  But  when  once 
a  course  of  ambition  has  been  opened  before  a  society, 
or  body  of  men  in  power,  then  there  are  always  found 
minds  quick  to  discern,  and  prompt  in  availing  them- 
selves of,  whatever  presents  itself  as  fit  to  promote  their 
designs.  The  chiefs  of  the  church  did  not,  in  the  first 
instance,  plan  the  ascetic  institute,  as  the  most  proper 
means  for  establishing  a  vast  system  of  spiritual  despot- 
ism; but — asceticism  offering  itself  to  them,  just  when 
every  extrinsic  aid  was  needed,  it  was  eagerly  seized 
upon,  and  industriously  turned  to  the  best  account.  If 
there  were  -duj  jjlanning  in  this  instance,  we  must  look 
44 


514  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  MONASTIC  INSTITUTE 

beyond  the  circle  of  human  agency  for  the  designing 
party. 

Still  more  caution  is  needed  when  we  come  to  advance 
any  general  statements  concerning  the  influence  of  mer- 
cenary motives,  with  men  professing  to  be  actuated  by 
the  loftier  principles  of  religion.  What  we  need,  in 
such  cases,  is  not  merely  candour,  but  a  wise  recollec- 
tion of  that  confused  condition  of  mind  which  so  often 
belongs  to  men  of  ordinary  quality,  who,  while  they 
think  they  intend  only  wliat  is  holy  and  honest,  are 
tacitly  governed  by  very  inferior  considerations.  It  is 
but  few  men  who,  habitually  and  severely,  question 
themselves  as  to  their  real  motives:  and  public  men  do  so, 
perhaps,  less  often  than  others.  Men  may  be  pursuing  a 
course,  such  as  might  have  been  dictated  by  the  lust  of 
wealth,  without  in  fact  being  mercenary  knaves;  for 
there  were,  in  their  view,  other,  and  better  motives,  on 
which  they  kept  their  eye  fixed,  while  their  hands  were 
busy  in  sweeping  gold  and  silver,  like  usurers  into  their 
bags. 

Now,  with  these  considerations  before  us,  we  need 
call  no  ill  names,  while  we  look  to  ihe  financial  bearing 
of  the  ascetic  institute,  upon  the  ancient  church  system; 
and  especially  upon  the  position  of  tlie  ruling  clergy. 

The  church  then,  and  it  was  its  glory,  had  under  its 
wing  a  very  numerous  body  of  pensioners; — that  is  to 
say,  the  poor  generally,  and  many  reduced  to  want  in 
times  of  persecution — the  widows,  as  a  distinct  class, 
and  the  virgins  also  as  a  class;  and  all  were  to  be  pro- 
vided for,  in  one  mode  or  another:  and  the  people,  re- 
cognising the  duty  of  making  this  provision,  and  know- 
ing to  how  serious  an  extent  the  bishop  was  constantly 
responsible,  could  not  leave  him  slenderly  furnished  with 
the  necessary  means.     The  church  chest,  whence  also 


i 


UPON  THE  POSITION  OF  THE  CLERGY.  515 

the  clergy  themselves  drew  their  incomes,  must  be  a 
deep  one;  and  in  fact  it  often  enclosed  enormous  amounts 
in  money,  plate,  jewels,  and  costly  apparel.  The  bishop's 
patronage  therefore,  and  his  power  and  consequence  as 
steward  of  ample  revenues,  and  as  the  guardian,  often, 
of  fortunes,  came  to  be,  at  an  early  time,  very  great; 
and  it  is  easy  to  see  that  this  power  and  patronage  were 
directly  enhanced  by  every  addition  made  to  the  perma- 
nent pensionary  establishment.  Cyprian  then,  was  quite 
right,  in  an  economic  sense  (though,  perhaps,  he  did  not 
distinctly  mean  as  much)  when  he  said  that  the  glory  of 
mother  church  bore  proportion  to  the  numbers  included 
in  the  choir  of  virgins.  There  is  no  mystery  in  all  this: 
none  but  the  most  ordinary  connexions  of  cause  and  ef- 
fect are  involved;  and  yet  so  obvious  a  bearing  of  the 
celibate  institution  upon  the  power  and  influence  of  the 
clergy  has  been  very  little  regarded. 

But  then  the  church  virgins  were  not  merely  a  class 
to  be  maintained;  for  they  were,  or  some  of  them,  large 
contributors  to  the  church  chest.  This  fact,  too,  has 
been  much  less  regarded  than  it  deserves.  Woman  has 
a  noble,  as  well  as  a  warm  heart,  and  when  once  she 
has  admitted  the  influence  of  powerful  and  elevating  mo- 
tives, she  gives,  after  a  princely  sort — yea,  "  all  her 
living;"  whether  it  be  "  two  mites,"  or  lands  and  houses 
and  thousands  of  gold  and  silver.  Many  noble  ladies 
were  among  the  earliest  converts;  and  the  gospel  conti- 
nued to  draw  such  into  the  church;  and  these,  as  if  they 
had  been  conscious  of  the  blessings  which  the  sex  at 
large  should  at  length  owe  to  Christianity,  *«  brought  an 
offering,"  like  that  of  the  eastern  mages,  to  lay  at  their 
Saviour's  feet.  Are  we  then  invidiously  and  coldly- 
blaming  this  liberality?      God  forbid:  whether  always 


516  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  iftONASTIC  INSTITUTE 

controlled  by  discretion,  or  not,  it  afforded  a  signal  in- 
stance of  the  quality  and  power  of  Christ's  doctrine. 

In  the  earliest  times,  and  while  large  sums  were  re- 
quired for  redeeming  and  maintaining  sufferers  for  con- 
science sake,  these  ample  donations,  or  sequestrations, 
found  a  proper  employment;  and  perhaps  did  not  greatly 
exceed  the  real  wants  of  tiie  church;  but  when,  and  at 
the  same  moment,  tlie  season  of  tranquillity  came,  and 
the  monastic  system  assumed  a  regular  form — when  the 
ascetic  enthusiasm  being  at  its  iieight,  wealthy  converts 
were  taught  to  think  that  the  noblest  of  all  modes  of  em- 
ploying the  mammon  of  unrighteousness,  was  to  build 
and  endow  religious  houses,  what  could  happen  but  that 
the  stewards  and  administrators  of  church  funds,  and  ge- 
nerally all  who  drew  their  incomes  from  the  common 
chest,  should  be  exposed  to  a  terrible  temptation  to  make 
a  trade  of  the  holiest  things?  Much  need  not  be  said  on 
so  obvious  a  point.  Whether  the  monasteries  and  con- 
vents which,  chiefly  in  this  very  mode,  sprung  up  so 
thickly  over  all  the  Christian  surface,  in  the  fourth  and 
fifth  centuries,  were  financially  independent  of  the  neigh- 
bouring churches,  or  were  placed  under  the  bishop's 
immediate  control,  the  general  result  would  be  the  same. 
Vast  wealth  was  continually  flowing  over,  from  the  world 
to  the  church.  The  religious  body  was,  every  day, 
gaining  upon  the  secular  body.  The  church  had  made 
excavations,  deep  and  wide,  here  and  there,  and  every 
where;  and  into  these  pits  there  was  a  constant  drain- 
age; and  every  commotion  of  the  social  system  threw 
into  them  a  new  flood,  charged  with  precious  matters. 

While  therefore  the  church  presented  to  the  eye  of  the 
people  a  broad  front  of  eleemosynary  demand — its  poor, 
its  widows,  its  confessors,  its  virgins,  its  monks,  and  the 
clergy  themselves,  and  all  to  be  supported  by  the  people,  it 


UPON  THE  POSITION  OF  THE  CLERGY.  517 

v/as  in  fact  silently  becoming  the  steward,  under  various 
conditions,  of  many  entire  private  fortunes.  But  could 
such  things  happen  without  producing  a  reflective  effect 
upon  the  religious  sentiments  and  manners  of  the  men 
most  nearly  concerned?  Can  we  believe  it?  or  can  we 
believe  that  the  singular  animation  which  marks  the  style 
of  the  Nicene  orators,  when  they  are  lauding  the  mo- 
nastic life,  received  no  heightening  from  tlie  unconfessed 
influence  of  inferior  motives? — Inferior  and  unworthy 
motives  seem  endowed  with  a  sort  of  tact  and  sense  of 
propriety,  impelling  them  to  skulk  into  the  dark  corners 
of  men's  minds,  where,  without  attracting  any  notice,  or 
making  any  noise,  they  may,  with  a  soft  finger,  press 
the  springs  of  action,  or  ease  the  moral  machinery,  just 
at  the  moment  when  such  interpositions  seem  needed: — 
a  prince's  most  needed,  and  least  honoured  attendants, 
know  how  to  do  their  office,  noiselessly,  and  to  keep 
out  of  view. 

There  can  be  no  need  ofl^ensively  to  impugn  the  inte- 
grity of  men  whom,  nevertheless,  it  were  absurd  not  to 
think  of  as  much  influenced  by  motives  which  it  would 
be  an  insult  loudly  to  attribute  to  them.  In  connexion 
with  our  immediate  subject,  nothing  more  is  requisite 
than  to  bear  in  mind  the  simple  fact,  that  the  ascetic  in- 
stitute did,  as  well  in  its  earlier,  as  in  its  later  form,  that 
is  to  say,  as  well  in  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  as 
at  the  end  of  the  fourth,  and  onwards,  very  materially, 
and  very  dangerously  affect  the  pecuniary  position  of 
the  clergy;  and  that,  at  length,  it  became  the  principal 
means  of  so  enriching  the  church  as  to  make  her  the 
mistress  of  the  world's  affairs.  It  is  then  a  sheer  infa- 
tuation to  cite  seraphic  hymns,  and  glowing  orations, 
concerning  the  "  angelic  life,"  and  to  forget  the  homely 
44* 


f 

518  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  MONASTIC  INSTITUTE 

import  of  tlie  entire  system,  in  ponnds,  shillings,  and 
pence. 

But  again:  the  ascetic  institute,  or,  to  speak  of  it  in 
the  concrete,  the  companies  of  monks,  nuns,  and  eremites, 
were  bodies  to  be  governed,  and  engines  to  be  worked. 
The  clergy,  and  especially  the  more  eloquent  members 
of  the  body,  commended  the  ascetic  life,  in  the  hearing 
of  the  people,  who  were  taught  to  look  upon  those  who 
professed  it,  as  superhuman  beings:  in  return,  these  un- 
earthly personages  gave  their  weight,  as  required,  to  the 
clergy,  and  actually  moved  on,  in  phalanx,  when  pe- 
culiarly needed:  the  ascetics  constituted  a  corps  de  re- 
serve, which  the  cliurch  might  summon  to  her  aid  in 
critical  moments.  Under  ordinary  circumstances,  as  is 
easy  to  understand,  these  recluses,  drawn  as  they  were 
fronr  the  bosoms  of  families,  and  trained  to  silence  toward 
the  world,  and  to  unlimited  disclosures  toward  their  spi- 
ritual guides,  were  the  fittest  instruments  of  that  sort  of 
clandestine  management,  by  means  of  which  the  clergy 
may  exercise  a  terrible  despotism  over  private  life. 
No  family  that  had  a  daughter  or  a  sister  in  the  choir 
of  virgins,  could  be  exempt  from  anxieties.  All  this 
is  well  understood  in  catholic  countries;  but  then,  in 
the  Nicene  age,  the  license  that  prevailed,  among  the 
ascetics,  left  a  much  wider  scope  for  this  sort  of  dumb 
tyranny:  the  nuns  not  being  actually  incarcerated,  might 
worm  themselves  through  all  the  crevices  of  society,  and, 
at  the  same  time,  as  they  habitually  "confessed"  to  the 
clergy,  and  received  instructions  from  them,  they  might 
be  employed  to  effect  any  nefarious  purpose. 

But  what  shall  we  say  of  that  influence  upon  the 
morals  and  manners  of  the  clergy — an  unmarried  clergy, 
which  resulted  from  the  access  allowed  them  to  con- 
vents?    The  less  that  is  said  on  such  a  theme  the  better; 


UPON  THE  POSITION  OF  THE  CLERGY.  51  i9 

yet  it  is  indispensable  to  place  it,  in  its  outline  at  least, 
before  the  reader.  If  the  worst  enemy  of  the  church — 
if  its  infernal  enemy,  were  supposed  to  have  had  the 
opportunity  to  devise  a  plan  most  certain  to  corrupt  it, 
what  better  could  he  have  done,  than,  first,  to  stir  deeply 
the  sensibilities  of  human  nature;  then  to  impose  celibacy 
on  both  sexes;  then  to  screen  both  from  the  eye  of  the 
world;  and  then  to  allow  the  one  free  access  to  the  other, 
under  pretext  of  spiritual  superintenc^ence!  Need  any 
thing  more  be  said?  Are  we  to  think  such  a  constitution 
of  things  to  have  been  the  contrivance  of  infinite  wisdom 
and  goodness?  Grant  that  paganism  has  established 
what  was  as  bad;  but  certainly,  it  has  sanctioned  nothing 
worse.  Under  a  luxurious  climate,  in  countries  where 
inveterate  licentiousness  had  brought  all  sentiments  and 
habits  down  to  the  lowest  level,  young  women  at  the 
earliest  age  were  snatched  from  their  homes — the  only 
places  then  where  modesty  still  took  refuge;  they  were 
congregated  in  dim  seclusions,  where  they  received 
visits  from  unmarried  men,  to  whom,  moreover,  and  in 
hours  of  tremulous  excitement,  they  were  to  expose  the 
inmost  secrets  of  their  hearts!  This  is  that  scheme 
which  we  are  to  admire,  and  to  emulate,  and  to  set 
a  going  afresh  among  ourselves! 


THE    DIRECT    INFLUENCE    OF    THE   CELI- 
BATE UPON  THE  CLERGY. 

We  have  only  to  follow  the  inevitable  c<Jurse  of 
things,  a  v^ery  little  way,  and  it  will  become  evident 
that  what  has  actually  happened,  could  not  but  have 
happened,  and  must  always,  unless  under  the  most  ex- 
traordinary circumstances,  happen  wherever  the  princi- 


520  DIRECT  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  CELIBATE 

pie  of  llie  ascetic  life  is  embraced. — The  doctrine  tlint 
celibacy  is  a  higher  and  a  holier  state  than  matrimony, -^^ 
and  tiiat  it  is  "  a  more  excellent  way,"  and  that  virginity, 
as  the  fathers  constantly  express  it,  places  a  man  near 
10  God,  is,  let  us  suppose,  broached  in  a  Christian  com- 
munity, and  it  is  put  forward,  whether  modestly,  or  fa- 
natically, so  as  to  enchain  ardent  minds.  Such,  instantly 
profess  this  angelic  excellence: — the  people  (not  taught 
better)  admire  and  applaud  the  sj)ecious  instance  of  fer- 
vour and  self-devotion;  they  gaze  with  awe  and  affection 
upon  the  "  holy  "  youth,  or  virgin;  and  this  awe  is  just 
so  much  respect  withdrawn  from  those,  however  excel- 
lent they  may  be,  who  fall  short  of  so  high  a  standard. 
But  can  there  be  any  element'  of  sanctity  which  is  not 
eminently  to  be  desired  in  those  who  administer  lioly 
things?  The  people  will  feel  this  congruity,  and  the 
ardent  and  ambitious  among  the  clergy  will  keenly  feel 
it  too;  and  although  other  means  of  popularity  should  be 
wanting,  this  at  least  is  at  hand: — the  weak  and  enthu- 
siastic, as  well  as  the  haughty  and  aspiring,  will  snatch 
at  the  distinction,  and  there  will  soon  be  a  band  of 
♦'  iioly  "  priests  and  deacons,  who  by  the  aid  of  the  very 
qualities  which  have  impelled  them  to  walk  on  so  ar- 
duous a  path,  will  soon  draw  towards  themselves  the 
warmest  feelings  of  the  devout  portion  of  the  community. 
AVhen  things  have  proceeded  thus  far,  many,  who  had 
been  insensible  to  powerful  and  primary  motives,  will 
yield  to  such  as  are  secondary;  and  they  also  will  "  pro- 
fess." 

Thus  the  band  of  the  "chaste"  will  gradually  have 
swollen  to  such  a  magnitude,  as  to  disturb  the  equilibrium 
of  feeling  throughout  the  church;  a  new  mode  of  speak- 
ing will  have  come  in,  adapted  to  this  altered  state  of 

*  Lcttrr  to  the  Bishop  of  Oxford,  pp.  208,  213. 


UPON  THE  CLERGY.  521 

things; — "  marriage  is  lawful,  no  doubt;  to  say  otherwise 
were  heretical; — but  yet  how  angelic  is  chastity — and 
how  fit  is  it,  that  those  who  wear  spotless  white,  at  the 
altar,  should   also  be    inwardly  and   personally  white! 
Whenever  it  is  possible,  let  us  receive  the  holy  sacra- 
ment from  holy  hands."     When  once  this  comes  to  be 
said,  or  felt,  by  the  devout,  the  fate  of  the  church  is 
sealed.     Married  priests  rest,  thenceforward,  under  an 
obloquy; — they  are  not  indeed  driven  from  the  altar;  but 
they  gladly  give  place  there  to  those  who  can  lift  an  un- 
blushing front  to  heaven.     jMore  and  more  go  over  to  the 
privileged  compaR}^  and  while  indemnifying  themselves 
as  they  may,  and  all  but  a  few  z£?i7/ indemnify  themselves, 
will  yet  claim  in  public,  the  honours  of  continence,  and 
join  in  decrying,  as  sensual,  the  married  priest.     When 
it  comes  to  be  understood  that  it  is  marriage,  and  not 
profligacy  that  is  condemned,  none  but  the  few  who  re- 
tain some  sense  of  virtue  and  piety  will  subject  them- 
selves to  contempt  for  the  mere  sake  of  being  able  to 
call  the  woman  they  live  with — wife.     At  length  it  is 
felt  to  be  a  measure,  at  once  of  discretion  and  of  mercy, 
not  to  say  necessity,  io  forbid  universally,  what  has  be- 
come the  occasion  of  scandal  and  of  invidious  distinc- 
tions: the  last  step  therefore  is  taken,  and  holy  celibacy, 
joining  hands  with  detestable  vices,  celebrates  its  triumph. 
Fanaticism  proclaims  a  high  day,  and  blows  her  seven 
trumpets  of — lust,  hypocrisy,  cruelty,  blasphemy,  infi- 
delity, madness,  and  misery;  and  the  church  thencefor- 
ward sits  enthroned  upon  the  overthrown  decencies  of 
domestic  life,  and  is  encircled  by  an  unmarried  priest- 
hood, the  ministers  and  patterns  of  all  evil.     The  social 
system  then  putrefies  to  the  core,  and  the  poison  of  its 
corruption  sheds  death  on  every  side.     In  various  de- 
grees of  aggravation,  such  have  always,  and  in  all  coua- 


522  DIRECT  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  CELIBATE 

tries,  been  the  consequences  of  clerical  celibacy;  and 
clerical  celibacy  is  the  inevitable  consequence  of  the 
doctrine  that  the  virgin  state  is  more  holy  than  the  mar- 
ried. 

Whether  v/e  speak  of  these  things  problematically,  as 
what  W2^^s'/  happen,  or  historically,  as  what  has  always 
happened,  is  indifferent  to  our  argument:  the  connexion 
of  the  effect  with  its  cause  is  of  the  most  intimate  and 
inseparable  sort;  nor  can  any  exceptions  be  produced 
that  should  affect  our  conclusion.  So  long  as  religious 
celibacy  rests  upon  the  plain  ground  of  utility,  it  will 
keep  within  narrow  bounds,  and  the  practice  may  be 
exempt  from  peril;  but  the  moment  it  is  propounded  as 
an  object  of  spiritual  ambition,  or  as  a  lofty  distinction, 
many  motives,  and  some  of  them  of  a  very  impure  kind, 
will  come  into  play,  impelling  multitudes  to  snatch  tiiis 
glory,  who  have  sadly  mistaken  their  personal  call. — 
Only  one  course  of  events  can  then  follow — namely,  the 
prevalence  of  frightful  abuses.  If  religious  celibacy  be 
a  glory  and  a  beauty,  in  itself,  the  clergy  must  not  leave 
this  advantage  to  the  laity.  This  were  as  if  the  bright- 
est military  courage — the  freshest  laurels  of  war,  ne- 
glected by  the  officers  in  an  army,  were  left  to  be  the 
distinction  of  the  privates.  Then  if  some  of  the  clergy 
arrogate  this  professional  virtue,  all  must  at  length  pre- 
tend to  it.  The  doctrine  of  Terlullian  and  of  Cyprian, 
is  the  alpha  in  a  series,  to  which  liildebrand  subjoined 
the  omega;  and  the  modern  favourers  of  antiquity  are 
setting  a  going  again,  that  which,  should  it  proceed,  can 
have  no  otlier  end. 

A  small  portion  of  men  only  will  (moments  of  excite- 
ment excepted)  adhere  virtuously  to  a  vow  of  continence; 
to  expect  any  thing  else  is  ridiculously  absurd.  But 
even  if  the  proportion  were  large,  as  it  possibly  might 


UPON  THE  CLERGY.  523 

become  for  a  time,  and  under  unusual  circumstances  of 
religious  animation,  or  of  proselyting  zeal,  it  remains  to 
inquire  \vhat  the  effects  of  celibacy  are  upon  the  dispo- 
sitions of  the  clergy — even  supposing  the  best  that  can 
be  imagined.  This  is  a  trite  subject.  Unavoidably,  the 
ministers  of  religion  are  so  far  set  off  from  the  influence 
of  ordinary  motives,  as  to  involve  some  peril  to  their  hu- 
mility, their  candour,  and  their  good  sense;  but  to  sever 
them  from  the  social  mass  violently,  by  celibacy,  is  to 
aggravate,  tenfold,  all  the  ill  tendencies  of  their  position, 
and  to  render  them  morose,  selfish,  arrogant,  prurient, 
trivial,  fanatical,  and  perversely  ambitious;  in  a  word — 
to  induce  habits  and  dispositions  the  most  pernicious  in 
tlieir  bearing  upon  private  life,  and  dangerous  in  the 
highest  degree  to  the  state.  The  history  of  Europe  has 
abundantly  established  these  general  principles,  which 
few  now  dispute. 

The  Lord  best  knows  what  human  nature  is;  and  he 
has  otherwise  determined  for  his  ministers  than  that 
they  should  want  the  salutary  and  softening  influences 
of  domestic  life;  and  here  we  come  to  a  decisive  instance 
in  which  the  explicit  law  of  God  being  violently  and 
without  shame  contradicted  and  set  aside  by  the  deci- 
sions of  the  church,  a  choice  must  be  made  between  the 
two  authorities.  On  this  particular  ground,  as  I  humbly 
venture  to  predict,  the  Oxford  Tract  church  principles 
will  either  win  a  signal  triumph — a  triumph  fatal  to 
Christianity  and  to  England — or  they  will  meet  their 
merited  fate,  and  give  their  last  sigh  to  the  unpitying 
winds.  Feeling  well,  as  they  must,  how  critical  this 
question  is,  the  promoters  of  Nicene  Christianity  \yill 
hardly  do  otherwise  than  evade  a  premature  trial  of  their 
strength  in  respect  to  it.  At  the  present  moment,  for 
them  to  say  all  they  mean,  and  clearly  to  propound  all 


524  DIRECT  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  CELIBATE 

Ihey  wish  to  see  effected,  would  instantly  bring  hundreds 
of  their  disciples  to  their  senses.  Not,  indeed,  that 
these  divines  intend  the  remoter  consequences  of  the 
course  they  are  pursuing;  but  tliey  intend  that  which 
must  infallibly  induce  tliose  consequences. 

It  is  peculiarly  desirable  that  this  momentous  disso- 
nance between  church  principles  and  New  Testament 
authority  should  be  calmly  regarded.     Virginity  is,  says 
the  church,  a  holy  condition,  and  a  link  of  connexion 
between  the  human  and  the  divine  nature.     Our  Lord 
has  consecrated  it;  and  its  high  patroness  is  the  Ever- 
"Virgin-JMolher,  the  Blessed  Mary.     Catholic  antiquity 
gives  it  sutTrage  in  favour  of  this  doctrine,  with  uncom- 
mon animation  and  unanimity;  and  how  pleasing,  nay, 
glorious,  is  the  notion,  and  how  enviable  the  privilege 
and  the  honour  of  those  who  walk  on  earth  as  angels, 
and  who,  although  in  the  body,  have  renounced  its  hu- 
miliations!    But  liien,  if  things  be  so,  it  would  be  cruel 
and  impious  to  exclude  the  clergy — the  very  ministers 
of  heaven — from  this  arena  of  celestial  merit.    No  canons 
eould  effect  any  sucii  exclusion.     All  the  most  lofty- 
minded  of  the  clergy  must  seize  this  distinction;  and  the 
very  persons  whom  the  church  would  wish   to  see  in 
the  seat  of  authority  will,  as  a  matter  of  course,  be  un- 
married men.     If  sacerdotal  dignity  were  always  con- 
ferred by  tlie  rule  of  professional  merit,  bishops,  (under 
such  a  state  of  things  as  we  are  now  supposing)  would 
be  chosen  almost  always  from  the  band  of  virgin  pres- 
byters. 

Here,  then,  we  directly  confront  a  clear,  positive,  and 
reiterated  divine  enactment.  'J'his  should  be  looked  to. 
The  present  advocates  of  church  principles  assume  it  as 
one  of  their  principles  that  things  which  are  only  once, 
©r  incidentally  and  very  slightly  alluded  to  by  the  m^ 


UPON  THE  CLERGY.  525 

Spired  writers,  may,  nevertheless,  be  absolutely  binding 
upon  tiie  church.  Let  us,  then,  take  this  ground,  and 
we  must  admit  that,  notwithstanding  any  general  infe- 
rence to  the  contrary,  if  nothing  more  had  been  said  in 
all  the  New  Testament  concerning  the  marriage  of  sacer- 
dotal persons  than  what  is  dropped  (and  "  near  not  to 
have  been  dropped")  by  Paul,  when  he  asks,  "what, 
may  we  not  lead  about  a  sister,  a  wife?"  &c.,  tliat  even 
in  that  case  the  liberty  of  clerical  matrimony  would  have 
been  secured.  This  cannot  be  denied  by  those  who  pro- 
fess the  principle  above  mentioned. 

But,  now,  so  it  is,  that  no  circumstance  or  condition 
of  the  ecclesiastical  constitution  established  by  the  apos- 
tles has  been  more  explicidy,  or  more  formally  specified 
than  this,  of  the  domestic  qitalijications  of  church  offi- 
cers, supreme  and  subordinate.  The  apostolic  rule 
would  nearly  justify  the  maxim — No  husband,  no  bisliop. 
If  episcopacy  itself  had  been  as  clearly  enjoined  as  is 
the  marriage  of  bishops  and  deacons,  there  would  pro- 
bably never  have  been  a  question  on  the  subject.  Timo- 
thy and  Titus  are  authoritatively  addressed  on  subjects 
specially  ■clerical  and  they  are  formally  instructed  how 
they  are  to  behave  themselves  in  "the  house  of  C!od;" 
and,  particularly,  they  are  told  what  sort  of  men  they 
ought  to  elevate  to  the  most  responsible  stations.  No 
doubt,  then,  we  shall  liear  the  apostle  say — the  apostle 
whom  we  have  heard  recommending  celibacy — "al- 
though bishops  and  deacons  are  not  to  be  prohibited 
from  marrying,  yet,  whenever  it  can  be  done,  it  is  v/eli 
to  give  a  preference  to  those  who  have  professed  virgi- 
nity; for,  besides  ttiat  no  man  who  warreih  entangietli 
himself  wiiii  the  things  of  this  life,  celibacy  is  a  holier 
and  a  higher  condition."  Does  not  the  inspired  text 
run  thus?  Strange  that  it  should  not!  Ought  we  not  to 
45 


526  DIRECT  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  CELIBATE 

call  the  reading  in  question,  when  we  find  so  flagrant  a 
contradiction  of  primitive  doctrine  and  practice — a  bishop 
to  be  a  husband! — a  bishop  to  be  one  who  has  children 
about  him! — the  deacons  too — and  their  wives — and 
again — a  bishop  blameless^  and  yet  a  liusband;  a  bishop 
a  pattern  of  piety,  and  yet  surrounded  with  cliildren! 

Not  one  word  is  there  in  these  clerical  epistles,  of 
*'  the  merit  of  virginity,"  not  a  hint  that  celibacy  is  at 
least  a  "  seemly  thing"  in  those  who  minister  at  the  al- 
tar! The  very  contrary  is  wliat  we  find  there.  A 
bishop's  and  a  deacon's  qualifications  for  office  are  di- 
rectly connected  with  tlieir  behaviour  as  married  men, 
and  as  fathers.  So  pointed  is  this  assumed  connexion, 
that  we  miglit  even  consider  the  apostle's  rule  as  amount- 
ing to  a  tacit  exclusion  of  the  unmarried  from  the  sacer- 
dotal office.  If  a  man  who  does  not  "rule  well"  his 
family,  is  thereby  proved  to  be  unfit  to  assume  the  go- 
vernment of  the  church;  by  implication  then,  those  are 
to  be  judged  unfit,  or  at  least  they  are  unproved  as  fit, 
who  have  no  families  to  govern. — The  mcLigcr,  heart- 
less, nerveless,  frivolous,  or  abstracted  and  visionary 
coelebs — make  liiin  a  bishop!  The  very  last  thing  he  is 
fit  for: — let  him  rallier  trim  tlic  lamps  and  open  the 
church  doors,  or  brush  cobwebs  from  the  ceiling! — how 
should  such  a  one  be  a  father  to  the  church? 

And  in  these  same  epistles,  wherein  the  married  state 
is  formally  specified  and  demanded  as  a  qualification  for 
church  ofiice,  the  very  illusions  under  the  influence  of 
which  the  church  ran  counter  to  the  apostolic  decision, 
are  plainly  predicted,  and  solemnly  condemned.  Not 
one  of  the  superstitions  or  abuses  of  popery  has  been 
so  clearly  foreseen,  and  proscribed,  as  is  that  clerical  ce- 
libacy which  the  ancient  church,  almost  instantly  after 
the  death  of  the  apostles,  favoured,  and  at  length  firmly 
established. 


UPON  THE  CLERGY.  527 

On  this  point,  immcrxsely  important  as  it  is,  the  autho- 
rity of  scripture,  and  that  of  the  fatliers,  are  directlj^ 
at  issue; — the  one  authority  explicitly  enjoining  the  very 
thing  which  the  other  discourages,  condemns,  and  at 
length  absolutely  forbids.  There  is  no  middle  ground 
to  be. taken  here:  there  is  no  room  to  evade  the  practical 
question;  for  it  touches  the  main  pillar  of  the  ecclesias- 
tical edifice.  Either  it  is  good  that  a  bishop  should  be 
a  husband  and  a  father,  or  it  is  not  good.  The  Nicene 
church,  as  well  in  theory  as  in  practice,  decides  that  it 
is  not  good;  nor  could  it,  consistently  with  its  princi- 
ples, come  to  any  other  decision. — In  a  word,  the  first 
principle  of  Nicene  Christianity  is  found  to  be  subver- 
sive, as  well  in  theory  as  in  practice,  of  apostolical  Chris- 
tianity, The  two  systems  diverge  from  their  starting 
points,  and  get  wider  asunder,  at  every  step  of  their 
course. 

A  principle  so  simple  as  that  it  may  be  propounded 
in  seven  words,  and  which,  as  so  propounded,  seems  to 
contradict  no  other,  may  appear  to  be  a  very  unfit  object 
of  serious  reprehension.  But  let  us  only  follow  it  out, 
in  its  practical  interpretation,  and  we  may  soon  come 
to  think  otherwise  of  its  importance.  We  are  told  that 
— "  The  preference  of  celibacy,  as  the  higher  state,  is 
scriptural,  and  as  being  such,  is  primitive."  We  utter- 
ly deny  any  such  assertion;  but  if  it  were  granted,  this 
at  least  would  be  certain,  that  this  "preferable  and 
higher  state,  was  not,  in  the  apostolic  age,  to  be  desired 
or  sought  after  by  those  who  were  to  be  the  *'  ensamples 
to  the  flock:"  on  the  contrary,  such  were  to  set  an  ex- 
ample of  virtue  and  wisdom,  as  husbands  and  as  fathers. 
Bishops  and  deacons  were  to  relinquish  tliis  "  sanctity," 
together  with  the  celestial  distinctions  belonging  to  it; 
and  they  were  to  walk  on  a  lower  path — a  path  where 


528  DIRECT  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  CELIBATE 

they  were  liable  to  be  looked  down  upon  by  the  celes- 
tial band.  But  can  we  tliink  that  any  such  element  of 
insubordination  was  intended  by  Paul  to  be  dropped 
into  tlie  ecclesiastical  constitution?  The  ancient  church 
could  not  suppose  it,  and  in  adopting  as  it  did  the  sera- 
phic doctrine,  it  felt  that  the  reverence  of  ihe  people  to- 
ward the  clergy  could  not  be  secured,  if  these  were  ex- 
cluded from  the  lionours  attaching  to  the  "  higher  and 
holier"  state.  But  grant  them  leave  to  profess  virginity, 
and  then  the  doctrine  itself  comes  out  in  the  form  of  a 
direct  violation  of  the  apostolic  injunction.  If  bishops 
and  deacons  are  allowed  to  choose  "  the  more  excellent 
way" — and  iiow  cruel  were  it  not  to  grant  them  this  in- 
dulgence!— then  bishops  and  deacons  will  not  ordinarily 
be  married  men.  In  other  words,  whoever  is  the  most 
devoted,  the  most  fervent,  the  most  self-denying,  and 
therefore,  so  far,  the  most  fit  for  ollice,  will  be  one  vvdio 
is  7iot  what  Paul  declares  a  bishop  and  deacon  ought  to 
be — a  married  man,  and  a  father. 

Say  what  we  i)lease  about  the  enforcement  o(  celibacy, 
this  open  contrariety  between  scripture,  and  an  as- 
cetic church,  must  always  present  itself  Io7ig  before  the 
enforcement  could  be  thought  of  as  practicable  or  desi- 
rable. Only  let  it  noiv  be  attempted,  without  any  pre- 
paration of  public  opinion,  to  enforce  celibacy  upon  the 
English  clergy.  As  easily  lift  the  halls  and  colleges 
of  Oxford  from  their  basements,  and  found  them  on  the 
clouds.  Ijut  if  first,  the  "  primitive"  doctrine  could  be 
brought  into  favour  with  the  clergy  and  tlie  laity,  and  if 
it  were  so  far  to  prevail  as  that  many  of  the  clergy  pro- 
fessed the  "  higher  state,"  and  that  married  men  were 
seldom  or  never  ordained,  and  that  a  shade  of  discredit, 
or  more,  rested  upon  the  married  clergy,  then  an  eccle- 
siastical ordinance,  enjoining  upon  all,  what  most  ac- 


tJPON  THE  CLERGY.  529 

tually  practised,  and  what  the  people  had  come  to  con- 
sider as  becoming,  might  be  nothing  more  than  a  mea- 
sure of  prudence.  What,  in  sucli  a  case,  could  be  more 
absurdly  unjust,  than  to  throw  all  the  blame  upon  the  last 
act  of  the  church,  while  the  doctrine  and  the  practices 
which  had  led  to  this  last  act,  were  applauded.  At  the 
worst,  this  enforcement  could  be  considered  only  as  a 
stretch  of  power,  outrunning  a  little  the  demands  of  pub- 
lic feeling. 

But  now,  let  the  explicit  authority  of  the  apostle, 
speaking  as  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  be  left  untouched; 
and  let  it  be  held,  not  merely  as  allowable,  but  as  pro- 
per and  desirable — wc  might  say,  indispensable,  that 
bishops' and  deacons  should  be  husbands  and  fathers  (or 
should  have  been  such)  let  the  people  be  taught  to  look 
to  their  pastors  as  examples  of  married  purity,  and  of 
paternal  authority  and  love; — let  the  happy  home  of  a 
Christian  minister  be  regarded  as  his  best  sermon;^ — let 
true  holiness  take  the  place  gf  a  prurient,  hollow,  sanc- 
timoniousness; and  then  it  will  be  found  utterly  imprac- 
ticable to  make  any  thing  of  the  "primitive  doctrine" 
of  virginity — the  bubble  will  burst  as  often  as  it  is 
blown.  In  a  community  in  which  the  ministers  of  re- 
ligion are  married  men,  and  are  honoured  as  siich,  and 
in  which,  as  a  consequence,  domestic  virtue  reaches  its 
highest  mark — woman  blessing  man,  as  wife  and  mother 
— there,  and  in  sucli  a  community,  no  efforts  will  avail 
to  enrol  companies  of  seraphs;  on  the  contrary,  contempt, 
and  a  well-meriied  disgust,  will  cover  the  busy  promo- 
ters of  any  such  pernicious  folly.  Morals  and  domestic 
felicity  will  be  saved,  and  the  bosom  of  the  social  system 
v/ill  be  kept  free  from  the  worst  of  all  plagues — a  vir- 
gin priesthood; — in  other  words,  bands  of — men,  we 
must  not  call  them,  wrought  up  to  a  silent  frenzy,  and 
45* 


530  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE 

leagued  against  llie  purity  and  peace  of  every  home  near 
them. 

If  tliere  he  any  one  praciinal  injunction  of  the  New 
Testament  infinitely  niomentous,  as  affecting  the  wel- 
fare of  society,  it  is  this  one,  which  makes  marriage  a 
first  qualification  for  office  in  the  church.  liCt  us  look  to 
it  then  that  we  adhere,  herein,  to  the  authority  of  scrip- 
ture, and  resolutely  oppose  the  insidious  advances  of 
those  *'  church  principles,"  and  of  the  Nicene  Christi- 
anity, which,  by  the  sure  operation  of  the  doctrine  con- 
cerning celibacy,  cut  at  the  roots  of  the  morals  and  do- 
mestic happiness  of  the  community  that  admits  them. 


THE  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTI- 
TUTE WITH  Rin  AL  NOTIONS  AND  PRAC- 
TICES. 

Seven  years  ago,  if  undertaking  to  treat,  philosophi- 
cally, of  the  progress  of  opinions  in  the  church  from  the 
apostolic  age,  to  the  period  of  the  council  of  Nice,  one 
should  have  felt  not  a  niomcnt's  hesitation  in  roundly 
affirming  the  fact  of  the  connexion  which  we  are  now  to 
speak  of;  for,  what  may  be  called  the  natural  history  of 
the  sacramental  superstition,  one  should  have  thought 
too  obvious  to  require  formal  proof.  It  has,  however,  be- 
come necessary  to  advance  with  more  caution  upon 
ground  which  might  well  enough  have  been  surveyed 
at  a  glance. 

There  is,  I  believe,  no  controversy  concerning  the  his- 
torical fact,  that  practices  had  been  established,  and  that 
notions   were  prevalent,  relating  to   the   ritual    parts  of 


WITH    RITUAL    NOTIOXS    AND    PRACTICES.  531 

Christianity,  in  the  fourth  century,  of  which  we  can  dis- 
cover scarcely  a  trace  in  the  apostolic  age.  No  one  pre- 
tends to  affirm  tliat  Chrysostom,  Ambrose,  and  Augustine, 
speak  of  baptism,  and  the  eucharist,  precisely  as  Paul, 
and  Peter,  and  John,  had  spoken  of  them.  A  difference 
then,  in  this  respect,  had  arisen  in  the  course  of  three 
hundred  years;  but  this  difference,  say  the  modern  ad- 
vocates of  church  principles,  was  nothing  more  than  the 
repining,  or  natural  expansion  of  certain  rudiments,  which 
the  apostles  had  mingled,  silently,  yet  designedly,  with 
the  Christian  institute.  Discerning,  or  thinking  that  we 
discern  these  rudiments,  even  in  the  apostolic  writings, 
we  do  well,  it  is  said,  to  derive  our  own  notions  and 
practices,  from  the  mature,  rather  than  from  the  crude  era 
of  their  history.  If  what  was  done  and  taught  by  the 
Nicene  divines,  in  regard  to  the  sacraments,  was  nothing 
more  than  what  had  been  foreseen,  and  intended  by  the 
apostles,  our  part  is  to  consult  the  Nicene,  rather  than 
the  apostolic  writings,  on  such  points. 

But  let  it  be  asked,  under  whose  auspices  had  this 
gradual  expansion  of  ritual  notions  and  practices  been 
effected  ?  This  question  is  surely  a  pertinent  one,  and 
the  answer  it  must  receive  brings  us  at  once  to  the  alleged 
connexion  between  tlie  ascetic  institute  (especially  the 
clerical  and  monastic  celibacy)  and  the  sacramental  doc- 
trine and  practice  of  the  Nicene  ago. 

This  doctrine  and  this  practice,  were  nothing  else  than 
what  men,  so  placed,  as  were  the  clergy  of  the  ancient 
church,  would  inevitably  move  toward,  and  adopt.  That 
an  unmarried  clergy,  professing  and  admiring  the  wildest 
extravagances  of  the  oriental  ascetisism,  should  have 
adhered,  century  after  century,  to  the  modesty,  simplicity, 
and  unobtrusive  seriousness  of  the  apostolic  sacramental 


632  CONNEXION    OF    THE    ASCETIC    INSTITUTE 

doctrine,  would  have  been  a  miracle  far  more  astounding 
than  any  of  those  to  which  the  church,  even  in  St.  Dun- 
stan's  time,  pretended.  Every  principle  of  human  nature 
forbids  such  an  incongruity,  nor  is  an  example  of  the 
sort  presented  by  history: — it  could  not  have  been; — it 
is  not  to  be  believed; — it  was  not  the  fact.  The  Nicene 
sacramental  doctrine  was  just  such  as  might  beseem,  and 
accord  with,  tlie  ascetic  feeling  and  condition  of  the 
clerical  body.  A  conclusion  so  manifestly  true  might 
be  left  unargued,  with  dispassionate  and  well  informed 
minds.  But  we  will  follow  the  subject  into  some  of 
its  elements. 

The  Nicene  sacramental  doctrine  and  practice,  had 
then  a  general  connexion  with  the  prevailing  asceticism, 
and  they  had  some  special  points  of  connexion  also, 
which  must  be  briefly  stated. 

Good  sense,  sobriety  of  judgment,  and  a  tone  of 
moderation  and  quietness,  which  belong  to  some  men — 
a  very  few,  by  endowment  of  nature,  can  belong  to  a 
body  of  men,  take  tliem  where  ycu  please,  only  as  the 
consequence  of  circumstances,  favouring  the  growth  of 
such  qualities  of  the  mind  and  temper:  and  if  the  circum- 
stances of  a  body  of  men  are  of  a  kind  to  generate  the 
very  opposite  qualities,  it  is  not  the  influence  of  the  ^ew 
who  may  be  of  sound  temperament,  that  will  avail  to 
contravene  the  powerful  and  constant  operation  of  induce- 
ments and  excitements,  tending  to  inflame  the  heart,  and 
pervert  the  reason. 

Tlie  apostolic  injunction,  that  church  oflicers  should 
be  married  men,  was  more  than  n  mere  license,  permit- 
ting  v^hat  it  might  have  been  diflicult  to  prevent;  for  it 
had  a  positive  reason,  and  it  was  a  provision,  not  simply 
against  the  grievous  abuses  that  attend  clerical  celibacy; 
but  it  was  a  security  for  the  moderation,  and  mental  sa- 


WITH  RITUAL  NOTIONS  AND  PRACTICES.  533 

nity  of  those  who  were  to  be  the  leaders  of  opinion  in 
the  church.  On  the  one  side,  let  us  imagine,  that  there 
is  a  body  of  men  whose  affections  have  been  warmed 
and  softened,  and  whose  moral  and  religious  notions 
have  been  corrected  by  a  varied  experience  of,  and  an 
actual  concernment  with,  the  ordinary  interests  of  life. 
On  the  other  side,  is  a  body  that  has  been,  by  some  vi- 
olent excitement,  thrown  or  seduced  out  of  the  common 
path,  and  whose  sympathies  have  no  natural  objects, 
wlio  have  not  been  happy,  as  other  men,  who  have  not 
shed  tears,  as  others;  who,  while  chafing  under  a  sense 
of  privation  and  inferiority,  have  also  arrogantly  chal- 
lenged for  themselves  peculiar  honours; — men  who,  by 
being  compelled,  until  it  has  become  a  habit,  to  look  at 
their  own  condition  under  vehement  excitements,  as  from 
a  forced  position,  have  learned  to  look  at  every  thing 
else  in  the  same  unnatural  manner.  Now  to  which  of 
these  bodies  shall  we  refer  any  moral,  political,  or  theo- 
logical controversy?  Even  if  a  loftier  style  be  found 
among  the  latter,  will  not  soundness  and  sobriety  of 
judgment  be  the  prerogatives  of  the  former?  will  not  ex- 
cess— extravagance,  severity,  and  practical  absurdity,  be 
the  characteristics  of  the  opinions  of  the  latter?  This 
we  assume  as  unquestionable.  Every  man  in  his  senses 
would  make  his  appeal,  in  a  cause  of  whatever  kind,  to 
the  former,  not  to  the  latter. 

On  this  very  ground  it  has  been  determined,  by  ex- 
press divine  authority,  that  the  rulers  of  the  church,  if 
not  all  who  may  exercise  their  gifts  in  its  service,  shall 
be  married  men.  But,  from  a  very  early  timfe,  and 
more  and  more  so,  every  year,  onward  to  the  Nicene 
age,  the  clergy  were  striving  to  reverse  this  rule;  and, 
in  the  fourth  century,  the  temper  and  habits  of  the  cle- 


534  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE 

rical  body  were  entirely  governed  by  the  ascetic  doc- 
trine; and  the  majority  were  actually  unmarried  men. 

At  once  then,  and  on  every  admitted  principle  of  com- 
mon sense,  and  of  scriptural  authority,  we  must  appeal 
from  the  judgment  of  these  unmarried  ascetics — these 
unhumanizcd,  these  half  crazed  sophists,  whose  imagi- 
nations were  habitually  inflamed,  whose  animal  system 
was  deranged,  whose  notions  were  like  themselves, 
harsh,  acrid,  malign,  and  who  could  neither  think  nor 
speak,  but  in  hyperbole.  From  such  men  we  will 
learn  notliing — or  nothin'rbut  a  caution  against  folly  and 
hypocrisy: — such  lips,  shrivelled  and  burning,  are  not 
wont  to  distil  wisdom,  nor  will  uc  seek  it  thence.  There 
is  then  a  prima  facie  case  against  the  Nicene  divines, 
inasmuch  as  they  were  not  husbands  and  fathers,  as 
church  rulers  should  have  been;  but  either  frenzied  fa- 
natics, or  imbeciles,  or  hypocrites;  or  they  were,  indi- 
vidually, tending  toward  some  one  of  these  conditions. 

Even  in  relation  to  the  most  remote  or  abstracted 
point  of  theology,  the  judgment  of  a  body  of  ascetics 
is  sure  to  be  perverted:  much  more  so,  if  the  question 
be  of  a  kind  involving  the  very  principle  of  the  ascetic 
life.  So  is  it  with  the  sacramental  question;  and  the 
doctrine  prevalent  in  the  fourtli  century  was  nothing  else 
but  another  form,  or  expression,  of  the  very  principle 
which  the  ascetic  life  imbodied.  'J'he  ascetic  error  did 
not  consist  in  a  denial,  or  exclusion,  of  what  is  moral, 
spiritual,  and  real;  but  in  thrusting  forward,  and  in 
making  too  much  of,  what  is  visible,  formal,  and  acci- 
dental. Holiness  and  purity  were  not  denied;  but  vir- 
ginity and  bodily  purity  were  chiefly  talked  of,  and  were 
regarded  as  if  they  implied,  and  conveyed,  and  were  the 
equivalents  of,  genuine  moral  qualities. 


WITH  RITUAL  NOTIONS  AXD  PRACTICES.  535 

This  insensible  substitulion  of  the  form,  for  the  sub- 
stance, is  so  prominently  characteristic  of  the  ascetic 
scheme  of  life,  that  I  cannot  suppose  it  to  be  called  in 
question.  But  now,  what  was  the  sacramental  doctrine 
of  the  very  same  men?  It  was — not  a  denial  of  grace, 
and  of  the  spiritual  realities  of  the  Christian  life,  but  a 
putting  foremost,  and  a  talking  most  of,  the  rile,  as  a  rite. 
The  very  men  who  were  accustomed  to  use  tlie  words 
sanctity,  and  virginity,  continence,  and  celibacy,  as  sy- 
nonymous terms,  or  as  equivalents,  did  also  constantly 
speak  of  baptism,  and  of  the  eucharist,  as  intrinsically 
holy,  and  as  conveying  holiness;  or,  at  the  best,  they  so 
held  up  these  rites  before  the  people,  as  led  them  to  pay 
a  superstitious  and  fatally  exclusive  regard  to  the  cere- 
mony, \Yiiile  moral  and  spiritual  qualities,  or  states  of 
the  heart,  were  lost  siglit  of. — The  very  man  who  thinks 
himself  as  holy  as  Gabriel,  because  a  virgin,  and  who 
reckons  so  many  hours'  fasting  to  be  worth  a  certain 
quantum  of  expiatory  merit,  is  he  who  attributes  a  justi- 
fying and  sanctifying  efficacy  to  baptismal  water,  and 
believes  that  tlie  swallowing,  or  the  carrying  about  with 
him,  a.  consecrated  wafer,  shall  get  him  admitted  into 
heaven.  Is  there  then  no  oneness  of  principle,  in  these 
several  notions?  But  if  the  analogy  be  admitted,  then, 
to  be  consistent,  we  should  eidier  admit  the  ascetic, 
along  with  the  sacramental  doctrine,  both  springing,  as 
they  do,  from  tlie  same  principle;  or  else,  rejecting  that 
principle,  disallow  both  of  its  consequences. 

The  sacramental  and  the  ascetic  doctrine  were,  how- 
ever, connected  by  yet  another  link.  We  have  adverted 
to  the  fact  that  it  was  the  ascetics  exclusively,  or  nearly 
so,  who  pretended  to  miraculous  powers,  and  it  was  they 
too  who  were  the  dealers  with  the  demon  legions.  That 
is  to  say,  men  who  are  cut  off  from  the  employments, 


536  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE 

interests,  cares,  and  enjoyments  of  common  life,  and 
who  are  kept  also  out  of  the  school  of  common  sense, 
must  provide  themselves  with  excitements  of  another 
order,  and  tliey  will  court  sucli  as,  being  condemned  by 
reason,  will  be  left  to  their  uninvaded  enjoyment. — In 
other  words,  monks  and  hermits,  and  men  forced  by  wild 
notions  of  religion  from  off  the  path  of  humanity — such, 
will  feed  upon  wonders.  The  transition  from  what  is 
unnatural  to  wli.at  is  supernatural,  is  an  easy  process, 
needing  nothing  but  so  much  religious  belief  as  may  fall 
far  short  of  Vv'hat  would  render  a  man  cither  pious  or 
moral. 

But  the  supernatural  has  its  two  species,  and  super- 
stition has,  therefore,  its  two  kinds.  Events  out  of  the 
course  of  nature  are  either  irregular  or  regular,  the  one 
being  directly  miraculous,  the  other  indirectly  so,  and 
subjected  to  a  fixed  mode  of  operation.  The  first  are 
miraculous  in  the  usual  sense  of  the  word;  the  second, 
consisting  in  ritual  performances,  involve  an  immediate 
interposition  of  the  divine  power,  but  yet  are  infallibly 
connected  with  the  due  observance  of  certain  ceremonies. 
The  exorcisms  of  the  ancient  cimrch  occupied  a  place 
between  these  two  species  of  miracles;  for,  while  they 
were  occasional  and  visible,  like  proper  miracles,  they, 
nevertheless,  followed,  infallibly  a  given  formula,  and 
were  efl^ected,  like  any  other  church  service,  by  a  dis- 
tinct class  of  ecclesiastics.  The  exorcists  were  officers 
who  could  expel  demons  more  certainly  than  physicians 
can  heal  tlie  most  curable  diseases. 

Tliere  were  many  other  influences,  not  now  to  be 
spoken  of,  which  concurred  in  bringing  forward  the  sa- 
cramental su])erstition;  but  the  one  we  have  here  in  view 
would  have  been  enough  alone.  When  all  the  more 
fervent-minded  of  the  clergy,  along  with  the  ambitious. 


WITH  RITUAL  NOTIONS  AND  PRACTICES.  537 

and  the  credulous,  affected  celibacy,  and  were  in  fact 
ascetics — debarred  from  every  salutary  and  corrective 
motive,  these  would  be  tending,  with  the  regulars,  to- 
ward the  miraculous,  in  both  kinds.  It  cannot  be  ima- 
gined that  men  breathing  the  stifling  atmosphere  of  reli- 
gious houses,  and  ever  gaping  for  miracles, — seeing  vi- 
sions, hearing  voices,  encountering  legions  of  demons, — 
that  such  should  be  contented  to  rest  in  a  ritual  purely 
spiritual  and  rational,  and  which  secured  edification  by 
the  divine  blessing  upon  the  use  of  ordinary  means  of 
instruction  and  persuasion.  No  such  rule  of  sobriety 
and  simplicity  could  satisfy  men  who,  instead  of  coming 
from  their  homes  to  church,  and  of  returning  from  church 
to  their  homes,  issued  from  cloisters,  and  returned  to 
cloisters.  The  sacramental  miracles,  which  blaze  on 
the  pages  of  Chrysostom — "  the  terrible  mysteries," 
which  archangels  dared  not  look  upon — are  the  awful 
rites  of  a  religion  whose  ministers  (the  serious  and  sin- 
cere among  thera)  have  been  wrought  up  into  an  habitual 
sombre  frenzy,  and  to  whom  nothing  is  real  but  the  un- 
real. 

The  sacraments,  just  as  we  find  them  alluded  to  in  the 
New  Testament,  may  well  and  fitly  be  administered  by 
one  who,  in  going  forth  to  his  duties,  returns  a  chubby 
infant  to  its  mother's  arms,  and  who,  in  returning,  is 
greeted  by  laughing  eyes  and  clapping  of  hands.  The 
religion  of  the  apostles  is  part  and  parcel  with  the  natu- 
ral and  domestic  condition  of  the  human  heart;  it  is  pure, 
kindly,  gentle,  and  soothing  to  every  affection  of  our  na- 
ture. Its  observances  are  not  *'  terrible  " — "  astound- 
ing"— "  inefl'able:"  they  are  not  the  wonder-fraught 
rites  of  the  Nicene  church; — no,  because  the  apostolic 
ministers,  bishops,  presbyters,  deacons,  were  men  still; 
46 


538  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE 

but  the  Nicene  bishops,  priests,  deacons — what  must  we 
call  them,  seeing  that  they  had  put  off  from  themselves 
all  the  better  qualities  of  the  manly  nature?  The  difier- 
ence  between  the  apostolic  and  the  Nicene  clergy,  as  to 
their  personal  and  social  condition,  just  measures  out  the 
confessed  difference  between  the  apostolic  riles,  and  the 
Nicene  mysteries. 

But  farther;  the  sacramental  doctrine  and  practice  of 
the  Nicene,  and  of  the  ante-Nicene  church,  had  a  spe- 
cial ecclesiastical  import,  which  offers  itself  to  the  eye 
of  every  impartial  inquirer.  The  church,  very  early, 
had  gathered  around  itself  a  various  mass,  which  it  had 
to  govern,  by  means  altogether  of  a  factitious  kind. 
While,  on  the  one  side,  it  had  forfeited  the  vital  energy 
of  apostolic  truth,  having  compromised,  as  well  doctrines 
as  precepts,  it  had  driven  a  portion  of  its  members  into 
a  position  where,  to  govern  them  at  all,  was  a  task  of  the 
highest  imaginable  difficulty.  Not  now  to  speak  of  the 
clergy  themselves,  let  it  be  considered  that  every  local 
church  had,  under  its  care,  companies  of  women,  elder  and 
younger,  who  being  removed  from  their  natural  guardians, 
whether  husbands,  or  parents,  or  brothers,  had  also  been 
pushed  forward  to  sustain  a  part  they  were  few  of  them 
equal  to.  These  women  were,  for  the  most  part,  de- 
pendent for  their  daily  bread  upon  the  church,  and  the 
condition  of  their  receiving  this  eleemosynary  mainte- 
nance, was  their  being  in  communion  therewith.  As 
poor  merely,  their  moral  and  spiritual  state  might  have 
been  overlooked;  but  as  virgins,  they  could  advance  no 
claim  irrespective  of  their  personal  deserts. 

Unless  we  bear  these  simple  facts  in  mind,  it  will  be 
impossible  to  understand  the  motive  of  that  intense 
anxiety  not  to  be  excluded  from  communion,  which  in- 
duced the  nuns  to  submit,  as  reported  by  Cyprian  and  by 


WITH  RITUAL  NOTIONS  AND  PRACTICES.  539 

Chrysostom,  to  the  hist  humiliations,  in  attestation  of 
their  virtue.  These  things  were  not  occasional,  but  or- 
dinary; and  not  even  the  vicious  operation  of  the  ascetic 
institute  can  be  believed  so  far  to  have  robbed  woman 
of  her  proper  nature,  and  of  her  self-respect,  as  is  im- 
plied in  these  revolting  usages— unless  it  be  under  the 
pressure  of  some  cruel  necessity.  Pitiable  indeed  was 
the  condition  of  multitudes  of  young  v/omen  who  had 
been  driven  by  fanatical  or  licentious  priests,  or  cruel  re- 
latives, at  the  earliest  age,  into  convents  (or  into  the 
profession  of  virginity)  and  who,  thus  reduced  to  help- 
lessness, were  compelled,  from  time  to  time,  to  earn 
their  ticket  for  the  sacrament,  and  for  their  bread,  by 
shameful  compliances. 

It  is  manifest,  however,  that  an  influence  of  a  higher 
sort  than  that  which  might  arise  from  the  mere  anxiety 
of  a  pensioner,  would  be  kept  in  force,  if  possible. 
That  is  to  say,  communion  with  the  church,  and  a  par- 
ticipation in  the  rite  which  sealed  and  signified  that  com- 
munion, besides  its  vulgar  import,  to  these  pensioners, 
would  be  surrounded  with  loftier  and  more  impressive 
sentiments.  The  clergy,  feeling  the  peculiar  difficulty 
of  their  task,  in  having  to  govern,  before  the  eye  of  the 
church  and  the  world,  the  virgin  company,  would  do 
and  say  every  thing  tending  to  strengthen  their  influence 
over  the  imaginations  of  the  governed,  and  to  bring  them 
within  the  range  of  more  refined  hopes  and  fears. 

As  to  the  genuine  motives  of  piety,  it  were  absurd  to 
suppose  that  these  could  take  effect  upon  the  minds  of 
women  such  as  were  those  spoken  of  by  Cyprian,  Je- 
rome, and  Chrysostom.  Yet  such,  even  the  most  frivo- 
lous, and  the  most  licentious,  are  often  vividly  alive  to 
superstitious  terrors.  In  modern  catholic  countries  this 
combination  is  found  to  involve  nothing  that  is  incompa- 


540  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE 

tible;  and  the  nuns  of  Antioch,  in  the  Nicene  age,  gave 
proof  also  of  the  harmony  of  these  same  elements. 

The  clergy  had  a  cumbrous  engine  to  work;  and,  to 
keep  it  in  order,  they  availed  tliemselves  of  every  means 
which  they  found  would  take  effect  upon  it.  Hence  the 
mysterious  terrors  wherewith  the  eucharistic  rite  was 
enveloped.  Minds  hardened  against  the  genuine  motives 
of  the  gospel,  might  yet  be  overawed  by  the  terrors  of 
the  eucharistic  ceremonial;  and  might  be  made  to  trem- 
ble by  the  threat  of  being  driven  from  the  altar.  One 
cannot  read  those  overwrought  passages  in  which  the 
great  Nicene  preachers  are  labouring  to  invest  the  cele- 
bration of  the  mysteries  with  terrors — even  with  hor- 
rors, and  not  feel  that  there  was  an  unconfessed  motive, 
a  secret  necessity,  a  latent  reason  of  government,  at  the 
bottom  of  all  this  astounding  rhetoric.  The  apostles  were 
accustomed  to  speak  in  no  such  style  of  their  "break- 
ing of  bread;"  no,  for  the  apostles  had  no  convents  and 
monasteries  to  manage. 

The  eucharistic  rite  may  very  well  be  regarded  as  tlie 
hinge  of  the  ecclesiastical  economy  of  the  Nicene  age. 
There  was  a  tendency  of  every  thing  toward  it;  it  was 
more  thought  of  and  regarded  than  any  other  element 
of  the  religious  system;  the  highest  benefits  were  con- 
nected with  a  due  participation  in  it,  and  the  most  terri- 
ble evils  were  the  consequences  of  even  a  temporary  ex- 
clusion from  the  privilege.  Before  the  time  when  the 
church  v;ielded  secular  powers,  excommunication  was 
its  last  resource,  in  dealing  with  the  refractory;  and  after 
the  time  when  ecclesiastical  censures  were  followed  by 
civil  pains,  it  continued  to  be  the  terrible  precursive  act 
of  a  process  which  might  deprive  the  victim  of  fortune, 
liberty,  life,  and  consign  him  to  eternal  misery. 

Now,  it  can  never  be  believed  that  this  well-designated 


WITH  RITUAL  NOTIONS  AND  PRACTICES.  541 

"terrible  mystery"  should  have  continued,  from  age  to 
age,  unchanged,  while  the  scheme  of  government  of 
which  it  was  the  hinge  was  advancing  from  the  simplest 
condition  of  an  humble  association  of  guileless  men  and 
women,  to  that  of  a  vast,  complicated,  wealthy,  and  am- 
bitious polity,  embracing  interests  of  all  kinds,  and  bind- 
ing together  various  bodies,  and  these  wrought  up  to  a 
state  of  unnatural  excitement.  Look  at  the  apostolic 
church,  such  as  we  may  suppose  it  to  have  been  in  read- 
ing the  Acts  of  the  Apostles:  look  at  the  churches  of  the 
Nicene  age,  at  Antioch,  Constantinople,  Rome,  Milan, 
tliree  centuries  afterwards,  and  then  consider  whether 
that  "breaking  of  bread,"  which  was  the  symbol  of 
communion  in  tlie  one  society,  was  likely  to  have  un- 
dergone no  clianges  when  it  came  to  be  the  symbol  of 
comniunion  in  the  other!  In  truth,  the  tv/o  riles  differ 
just  as  the  two  societies  differ;  and  tlie  two  differed  in 
their  first  principles,  in  their  ingredients,  and  in  their 
spiritual  and  moral  characteristics. 

Wliat  is  now  proposed  to  the  protestant  church  is  in 
substance  this — To  leave,  as  crude,  or  as  "  undeveloped," 
the  ritual  elements  of  Christianity,  such  as  they  may  be 
gathered  from  the  monuments  of  the  apostolic  age,  and 
to  take  these  elements  from  the  hands  of  the  ascetic,  un- 
married (often  licentious  and  ambitious)  superstitious,  and 
fanatical  clergy  of  liie  fourth  century. 

Were  it  not  better  to  yield  ourselves  at  once  to  the 
better-digested  doctrine  and  practice  of  the  later  (Romish) 
church?  If  a  power  of  gradual  development  belongs  at 
all  to  the  church,  (and  unless  this  is  supposed,  the  ripened 
doctrine  and  worship  of  the  Nicene  age  has  no  authority, 
and  is  nothing  but  innovation,)  then,  how  can  we  be  sure 
that  this  power  had  exhausted  itself,  or  had  been  abro- 
46* 


542  CONNEXION  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE 

gated,  precisely  in  the  fourth  century?  On, what  grounds 
do  we  resist  its  operation  as  extant  in  the  fifth,  sixth, 
seventh?  Or,  why  believe  that  it  put  forth  its  last  energy, 
and  expired,  in  the  acts  of  the  council  of  Trent?  The 
church  of  Rome  may,  indeed,  choose  to  take  her  stand 
at  this  point;  but  she  is  not,  in  principle,  compelled  to 
do  so,  and  miglit  even  now,  on  urgent  motives,  so  modify 
her  past  decisions  (never  will  she  change  her  nature)  as 
to  enable  her  to  invite  the  return  to  her  bosom  of  some 
whom  she  sees  to  be  mourning  their  alienation  from  her 
maternal  embraces. 

The  power  which  removed  the  cup  from  the  lips  of 
the  laity,  may  restore  the  boon;  or  it  may  so  expound 
any  article  of  faiih  as  to  open  a  door  of  return  to  the 
penitent.  Whether  it  will,  or  may,  make  any  such  con- 
cessions, or  not,  the  church  of  Rome,  at  the  present  mo- 
ment, does  not  leave  her  banished  ones  to  doubt  of  the 
yearnings  of  her  heart  toward  them.  U  they  would  fain 
return,  she,  on  her  part,  would  fain  receive  them.  The 
feeling  pervading  the  catholic  world,  and  clierished  espe- 
cially at  Rome,  in  regard  to  the  Oxford  divines,  and  their 
party,  has  not  failed  to  express  itself,  and  will  probaljly 
become  more  and  more  decisive:  witness  the  follow- 
ing:— 

"  The  attention  of  all  good  catholics,  and  esjiecially 
of  the  Congregation  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Faith, 
cannot  be  enough  excited  by  the  present  state  of  religion, 
in  England,  in  consequence  of  the  new  doctrine,  pro- 
pagated with  so  much  ability  and  success,  by  Messrs. 
Newman,  Pusey,  and  Keble,  with  arguments  drawn  from 
the  holy  fathers,  of  which  they  have  just  undertaken  a 
new  edition  (translation)  in  English,  'iliese  gentlemen 
labour  to  restore  the  ancient  catholic  liturgy — the  breviary 
(which   many  of  them,  to  the  knowledge  of  the  writer, 


WITH  RITUAL  NOTIONS  AND  PRACTICES.  543 

recite  daily,)  fastings,  the  monastic  life,  and  many  other 
religious  practices.  Moreover  tliey  teach  the  insufficien- 
cy of  the  Bible,  as  a  rule  of  faith — the  necessity  of  tra- 
dition, and  of  ecclesiastical  authority — the  real  presence 
— prayers  for  the  dead — the  use  of  images — the  priests' 
power  of  absolution — the  sacrifice  of  the  mass— the  devo- 
tion to  the  virgin,  and  many  other  catholic  doctrines,  in 
such  sort  as  to  leave  but  little  difference  between  their 
opinions  and  the  true  faith,  and  which  difference  becomes 
less  and  less  every  day.  Faitiiful!  redouble  your  prayers, 
that  these  happy  dispositions  may  be  increased!"* 

Whilst  the  Romish  church  anticipates  the  happiest 
consequences  to  result  from  the  movement  now  taking 
place  in  England,  she  need  not  entertain  much  anxiety 
concerning  the  course  to  be  adopted  when  the  question 
of  an  actual  reconciliation  may  come  on.  She  has  an 
argument  in  reserve,  which,  even  apart  from  any  small 
concessions,  may  be  found  effective  in  overcoming  the 
scruples  of  conscientious  men.  A  Romanist  might  thus 
address  the  advocates  of  Oxford  Tract  principles — 

"You  tell  us  that  certain  dogmas  and  practices  con- 
firmed by  the  council  of  Trent,  are  neither  catholic  nor 
ancient.  Grant  it,  and  yet  we  might  demand,  on  gene- 
ral principles,  the  submission  of  those  (or  their  silent 
conformity)  who,  while  they  think  much  of  the  crimi- 
nality of  schism,  also  hold  that  the  church,  from  the 
first,  has  possessed  a  perniancnt  legislative  and  adminis- 

*  Avvcniinenti  Edincanti  mas^ime  Recenti,  &c.  p  14.  Roma, 
1S39.  Con  facolta.  In  othor  numbers  of  this  religious  periodi- 
cal occur  allusions  to  the  progress  of*'  sound  opinions  "  in  Eng- 
land, whicli  iniLTht  perhaps  startle  the  persons  implicated,  as  well 
a^  the  public.  The  passage  cited  above  is  thus  designated  in  the 
tableof  contents— Mirabileavvicinamentofrn  protestTUti  alle  Dot- 
trine  Cattollchc. 


644         CONNEXION  or  the  ascetic  institute 

trative  authority. — If  it  did  not,  how  shall  we  justify 
the  many  additions  made  to  apostolic  practice  during  the 
jfirst  tliree  centuries? — Your  church  principles,  what  are 
they,  if  there  be  no  such  authority?  But  if  there  be, 
then  how  do  you  prove  that  it  came  to  an  end,  and  did 
not  flov/  on  to  the  cliurch  of  Rome — at  least  in  regard  to 
"western  Christendom? 

*'  But  leaving  this;  we  think  it  does  not  become  you 
to  except  against  our  dogmas  and  practices  on  tlie  ground 
of  the  alleged  autJiority  of  a  higlier  antiquity,  until  you 
have  yourselves  yielded,  fully  and  openly,  to  that  same 
authority;  and  especially  in  those  matters  which  it 
atTirms  to  be  of  prime  importance.  In  claiming  the 
right,  as  you  seem  to  do,  to  reject  certain  parts  of  the 
ancient  church  system,  on  the  plea  of  a  higher  scripliiral 
authority,  that  is,  on  the  strength  of  your  private  inter- 
pretation of  the  canonical  writings,  you  go  the  whole 
length  of  heretics  and  ultra  protestanls,  who  do  nothing 
worse;  and  all  the  diflerence  between  you  and  them,  will 
be  a  difTerence  in  particulars.  This  is  not  to  adhere  to 
churcli  principles. 

*'  Now,  as  you  well  know,  the  ascetic  doctrine,  ex- 
pressed in  the  monastic  life,  and  the  consequent  celibacy 
of  the  clergy,  claim  all  the  weight  and  authority  that 
can  be  derived  from  the  sanction  of  high  antiquity,  and 
universal  consent.  You  know  that  the  monastic  sys- 
tem was  an  intimate  and  inseparable  element  of  the  reli- 
gious and  ecclesiastical  system,  at  the  time  to  which  you 
attribute  such  an  authority,  as  that  it  should  overrule 
the  later  enactments  of  the  Romish  church.  You  have 
yourselves  admitted  the  abstract  excellence  of  the  ascetic 
life;— you  adopt,  as  far  as  you  can,  its  characteristic  de- 
votional exercises,  and  you  give  the  world  reason  to 


WITH  RITUAL  NOTIONS  AND  PRACTICES.  545 

believe  that  the  restoration  of  the  monastic  orders  would 
be  by  no  means  disagreeable  to  you. 

"  But,  to  advance  so  fiir,  is  to  advance  too  far,  or  not 
far  enoiigli.     You  stand  in  an  ambiguous  position  which 
it  is  hard  to  justify  on  any  general  principle  whatever. 
Even  if  the  reformers  had  some  pretexts  for  change,  in 
relation  to  certain  abuses  of  the  Romish  church,  it  was 
their  high  sin  to  have  rejected  and  blasphemed  the  mo- 
nastic  system — unquestionably  ancient  as  it  is:-— -this 
system  was  no  popish  corruption;  and  to  cast  it  out  as 
evil,  is  to  subvert  the  first  principle  of  church  authority, 
and  to  set  up  another,  even  that  of  the  ultra-protestant 
principle.     But   what   say  you    to    the    church  within 
which,  at  the  peril  of  your  souls,  you  remain,  and  at 
whose  altar  you  minister?     Your  church  has  outraged 
catholic  antiquity  by  its  rejection  of  monasticism.    Your 
church  has  no  holy  virgins:  but  was  there  any  ancient 
church  that  had  not,  or  that  did  not  m.ake  its  boast  of 
them?     Your  church  has  not  a  monastery,  or  a  convent, 
or  a  hermit,  or  any  one  of  those  things  which  the  church 
universal  of  the  Nicene  age  regarded  as  of  the  highest 
value.     Call,  now,  St.  Athanasius,  and  St.  Basil,  and  St. 
Ambrose,  and   St.  John   Chrysostom,  and  St.  Gregory 
Nazianzen,  and  St.  Augustine,  call  them  from  their  high 
seats  in  glory,  and  let  them  judge  between  you  and  us! 
What  name  think  you  would  these  holy  doctors  bestow 
upon  a  church  shorn  of  all  the  honours  of  virginity — 
naked,  naked,  as  it  is?     With  what  emotions  of  horror 
would   they  look   around  upon  your  married   bishops, 
your  married  priests; — bishops  and  priests  married  after 
ordination — married,  some  of  them,  a  second  time — it 
may  be  a  third!     Tell  ns  then,  are  you  bearing  a  faith- 
ful and  courageous  testimony  to  holy  catholic  principles, 
in  conforminff  to  a  church  which,  as  vou  cannot  doubt, 


54G       CONNEXION  OF  THE  ASCETIC  INSTITUTE,  SlC. 

would  have   been  spurned   and   condemned  by  all  the 
fathers  and  saints  of  the  best  age? 

"  Tell  us,  and  tell  the  world  plainly,  do  you  tliink  with 
the  holy  fathers,  above  named,  on  these  momentous  sub- 
jects; or  do  you  think  with  tlie  founders  of  your  pro- 
testant  church?  You  are  wont  to  use  strong  language 
(though  not  too  strong)  in  speaking  of  the  sin  and  dan- 
ger of  dissent;  but  may  not  a  man  sometimes  do  w'orse 
in  conforming,  than  he  could  in  dissenting?  Dissenters, 
if  they  sincerely  think  what  they  profess,  are  at  least 
lionesi  men.  But  now,  do  ymi  think  with  your  church 
in  those  prominent  matters  in  relation  to  v;hich  it  con- 
tradicts and  impugns  catholic  antiquity?  If  you  think 
with  your  church  concerning  the  monastic  life,  the  merit 
of  virginity,  the  invocation  of  saints,  the  devotion  paid 
to  holy  relics,  and  the  like,  where  is  your  professed  de- 
ference to  antiquity?  If  you  do  not  think  with  it  in 
these  points,  essential  as  they  are,  what  are  you  but  dis- 
senters— want  in  <r  courao-e?" 

Obvious  reasons  of  policy  may  induce  the  Romish 
church  to  forbid  itself,  at  present,  the  use  of  arguments 
such  as  the  above.  In  what  v/ay  the  cogency  of  them, 
when  advanced,  may  be  evaded,  remains  to  be  seen. 
The  Oxford  Tract  divines  are  not  Romanists  in  disguise; 
they  do  not  intend  the  re-establishment  of  popery;  but 
they  devoutly  admire,  and  would  gladly  restore,  that 
which  the  English  reformers  did  not  intend,  and  which 
they  rejected,  feeling  and  seeing  its  contrariety  to  aposto- 
lic doctrine  and  morals. 

These  accomplished  and  devout  divines  have,  as  it 
seems,  advanced  at  a  too  rapid  rate;  not  duly  consider- 
ing that,  though  reformation  may  be  quick-paced,  and 
even  sudden,  the  advances  or  the  return  of  superstitions 


ADDITIONAL  REFERENCES  AND  CITATIONS.  547 

(let  the  word  be  pardoned)  must  always,  in  the  nature 
of  things,  be  slow.  Seven  or  ten  years  will  not  bring 
about  the  changes  which  were  the  work  of  two  or  three 
centuries.  By  this  precipitation  they  iiave  become  se- 
riously insnared; — irisnared  as  churchmen,  approvino- 
what  their  church  does  not  allow,  or  has  pointedly  con- 
demned:— insnared  as  the  professed  adherents  of  catho- 
lic antiquity,  by  not  bearing  their  testimony  openly  and 
practically,  to  every  catholic  principle. 

From  these  embarrassments  they  may  indeed  with- 
draw themselves,  silently  and  insensibly,  if  time  be  al- 
lowed them  for  gradually  shifting  their  position,  and  for 
retracting,  little  by  little,  what  has  been  said — before  its 
time.  Mean  while  the  cordially  affected  adlierents  of 
the  reformation  must  wish  to  see  ihe  present  controver- 
sy dealt  with  in  the  most  summary  method,  and  brought 
to  the  speediest  possible  conclusion. 


ADDITIONAL  REFERENCES  AND  CITATIONS. 

In  the  preceding  pages  I  have  purposely  avoided 
throwing  the  stress  of  ray  argument,  in  any  instance, 
upon  facts  or  testimonies  of  a  recondite  or  questiona- 
ble kind,  and  liave  appealed  only  to  evidence  which 
abounds  on  all  sides,  and  of  which  any  one  may  readily 
collect  more  than  enough,  who  has  access  to  the  works 
where  it  is  to  be  found.  Even  a  few  days'  industry, 
properly  directed,  would  amply  suffice  for  enabling  the 
reader  to  satisfy  himself  concerning  all  the  statements 


548  ADDITIONAL  REFERENCES  AND  CITATIONS. 

or  allegations  to  which,  in  these  numbers,  any  impor- 
tance is  attached.  It  is  not  indeed  to  be  supposed  that 
many  should  give  themselves  even  this  degree  of  trouble, 
some,  however,  will  do  so; — more  than  a  very  few  are 
actually  engaged  in  researches  of  this  sort,  and  it  is  much 
to  be  desired  that  they  should  be  continued  until  the 
truth,  and  the  ivhole  truth,  concerning  the  religious  opi- 
nions and  practices  of  the  first  six  centuries  has  become 
generally  diffused.  It  is  only  by  the  means  of  this 
knowledge  of  antiquity  that  we  can  be  qualified  to  deal 
with  Romanism,  or  can  be  secured  against  the  insidi- 
ous advances  of  that  s[)ecies  of  pietism  of  which  popery 
is  merely  a  digested  scheme. 

More  with  the  view  of  saving  the  labour  of  any  who 
may  be  entering  upon  these  studies,  than  of  substan- 
tiating in  a  formal  manner  statements  which  no  well  in- 
formed opponent  would  think  of  calling  in  question,  I 
shall  now  point  out  the  path  in  pursuing  which  the  read- 
er may,  with  very  little  expense  of  time,  satisfy  him- 
self as  to  the  condition  of  the  Nicene  church,  in  regard 
to  one  or  two  principal  points  which  have  been  glanced 
at  in  the  preceding  pages:  and  in  order  to  preclude  an 
incidental  disappointment,  i  will  refer  to •  those  works 
only  which  are  the  most  likely  to  be  accessible  to  the 
reader.  In  fact,  it  is  the  evidence  of  these  few  that  is 
the  most  conclusive:  what  is  recondite  and  rare  would 
be  so  much  the  less  satisfactory. 

One  principal  point  referred  to  in  these  numbers,  is 
the  actual  condition,  from  the  first,  of  the  ascetic  insti- 
tute. The  evidence  bearing  upon  this  subject  has  a  dou- 
ble importance,  first,  inasmuch  as  it  dissipates  the  fond 
and  dangerous  illusion  concerning  an  age  of  purity,  and 
of  generally  diffused  truth  and  holiness;  and,  secondly, 


ADDltlONAL  REFERENCES  AND  CITATIONS.  54S 

as  it  tends  to  discourage  and  to  arrest  the  attempts,  now 
so  industriously  making,  to  re-establish  the  celibate. 

The  ascetic  institute  and  the  celibate  has  existed  under 
three  distinguishable  conditions — the  Jirsi,  that  in  which 
we  find  it  in  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  when  it 
was  the  least  artificial  in  its  constitution,  and,  one  would 
suppose,  the  least  liable  to  abuses.  "What  it  was  in  fact, 
at  that  time,  may  be  gathered  from  those  passages  in 
Cyprian  to  which  I  have  already  referred,  p.  113.  The 
epistle  to  Pomponius,  and  the  Treatise  de  liabitu  Virgi- 
num,  must  be  perused  entire.  The  second  condition  is 
that  of  the  Nicene  age,  when  monasteries  and  convents 
were  springing  up  on  all  sides,  and  when  the  ascetic 
feeling  (mania)  was  at  its  height.  The  third,  is  that  re- 
gulated and  severe  form,  imposed  upon  the  monastic  or- 
ders under  the  auspices  of  the  Romish  church,  and  with 
which  at  present  we  have  nothing  to  do.  It  is  with  the 
second  that  we  are  concerned.  Does  the  inquirer  choose 
then  to  take  his  idea  of  the  Nicene  asceticism  from  de- 
votional pieces,  and  hortatory  compositions,  showing 
what  it  should  have  been;  or  from  the  direct  and  indi- 
rect admissions  of  its  admirers?  I  presume  the  latter 
course  to  be  preferred;  nor  can  we  do  better  than  open 
Chrysostom;  and  it  is  curious  to  turn  from  any  of  his 
splendid  descriptions  of  the  celestial  polity  which  the 
monastic  orders  professed  to  realize  (as  tom.  i.  p.  115) 
to  passages  sucli  as  the  one  already  cited  (p.  405)  and 
to  the  two  treatises,  in  one  of  which  this  passage  occurs. 
I  will  say  nothing  more  of  them  than  that  they  should 
serve  as  a  caution  against  the  easy,  but  dangerous  error 
of  supposing  that  modern  church  historians,  have  fully 
and  fairly  depicted  the  ancient  church.  The  very  facts 
most  necessary  to  be  known,  are  barely  glanced  at  by 
47 


550  ADDITIONAL  REFERENCES  AND  CITATIONS. 

any  of  these  writers.  The  first  of  these  admonitory- 
treatises  is  addressed  tt^c?  tsu?  iX^vrAS  TrapBivcvi  o-wikj-aktovc, 
the  title  of  the  second  is — -Tne^nou  /mt  ras  kscvcvikac  o-uvcikuv 

a\SgdLTiv,     It   is   manifest   that   the   practices  inveighed 
against  were  common,  and  the  abuses  mentioned  noto- 
rious.    There  is,  indeed,  nothing  to  be  wondered  at  in 
these  things — except  it  be  the  infatuation  of  those  who, 
with  such  facts  before  them,  could  yet  persist  in  the  en- 
deavour so  to  fight  against  human  nature,  common  sense, 
and  Christianity.     Basil's  Treatise  on  Virginity,  which 
I  will  not  recommend  the  reader  to  make  himself  ac- 
quainted with,  gives  indications  enough  of  the  existence 
and  frequency  of  abuses  even  worse  than  those  referred 
to  by  Chrysostom.     Jerome,  cautious,  and  yet  caustic, 
can  neither  withhold  the  truth,  nor  plainly  declare  il;  in 
his  Epistle  to  Eustochiwii  he  must  be  listened  to  as  a 
reluctant   witness,   intimating  more   than  lie  will   say. 
Elsewhere,  however,  he  freely  admits  tliat  the  excellence 
professed  by  the  two  classes  of  ascetics  was  but  rarely 
realized.     Comment,  in  Lament,  cap.  3.     Sed  rara  est, 
etpaucissimis  dono  Dei  h?ec  perfeclioconcessa.     Again, 
in  the  epistle — Ad  Rusticum  Monachum,  the  truth  comes 
out,  and  it  appears  plainly  that  the  system  exhibited,  in 
Jerome's  time,  every  one  of  those  inherent  bad  qualities 
which  have  always  drawn  upon  it  tlie  contempt  and  ab- 
horrence of  mankind.    This  epistle  (of  a  few  pages  only) 
the  studious  reader  will  peruse  throughout:  no  evidence 
can  be   more  unexceptionable.     Alone,  Jerome's  testi- 
mony might  well  be  admitted  as  sufficient;  but  it  accords 
minutely  with  thatof  Chrysostom,  especially  as  to  the  cus- 
tom against  which  the  first  of  the  above-named  treatises 
is  directed. — "  Some  you  may  see  with  their  loins  girt, 
clad  in  dingy  cloaks,  with  long  beards,  who  yet  can  never 
break  away  from  the  company  of  women;  but  live  under 


ADDITIONAL  REFERENCES  AND  CITATIONS.  551 

the  same  roof,  sit  at  the  same  tables,  are  waited  upon  by 
young  girls,  and  want  nothing  proper  to  the  married  state, 
except — wives!    The  luxury  commonly  indulged  in  by 
the  rich  ascetics,  the  ostentatious  and  rapacious  practices 
of  the  poor,  and  the  insanity  of  the  fanatical   sort,  are 
spoken  of  without  disguise.     Vidi  ego  quosdam,  &:c.  .  . 
publice  extendentes  manus,  pannis  aurum  tegiraus,  el  con- 
tra omnium  opinionem,  plenis  sacculis  morimur  divites, 
qui  quasi  pauperes  viximus.    Nothing  else  can  be  inferred 
from  this  epistle  (and  see,  ad  Nepot.)  than  that  the  gra- 
phic description  it  contains  of  knavery,  licentiousness,  and 
insanity,  was  applicable  to  the  many;  and  that  the  excep- 
tions were  few:  nequaquam  considerans  quid  alii  mali 
faciunt,  sed  quid  boni  tu  facere  debeas;  neque  vero  pec- 
cantium  ducaris  midliludine,  et  te  pereuntium  lurba,  &c. 
This  sort  of  evidence,  furnished  by  a  passionate  admirer 
of  the  ascetic  institute,  ought  to  be  considered  as  con- 
clusive.    Erasmus,  determined  to  give  the  ancient  monks 
a  credit,  at  the  expense  of  his  contemporaries,  contra- 
dicts the  clearest  testimonies  in  his  "Antidote"  to  this 
epistle,  which,  by  the  way,  is  highly  curious  as  indica- 
tive of  the  approaching  reformation.     I  beg  to  commend 
the  passage  to  the  attention  of  the  modern  admirers  of 
ascetic  practices,  quae,  says  Erasmus,  magis  ad  judeeos 
pertinent,  quam  ad  christianos,  et  superstitiosum  facere 
possunt,  pium  non  possunt.     Does  not  all  experience 
confirm  this  testimony? 

I  really  resent  the  humiliation  of  making  grave  refe- 
rences to  book  and  chapter  of  a  work  like  that  of  Cas- 
sian.  If  called  upon  to  make  good  any  of  the  asser- 
tions or  intimations  concerning  the  Nicenc  monkery 
which  I  may  have  left  unsupported  by  direct  citations, 
Cassian  would  help  me  out  of  every  difficulty.  The 
monastic  rules  of  St.  Pachomius  are  appended  to  this 


552  ADDITIONAL  REFERENCES  AND  CITATIONS. 

writer's  Instiliites,  and  exhibit  the  spirit  and  quality  of 
the  monastic  life:  ihey  are  prefaced  by  Jerome,  with  a 
brief  and  curious  account  of  it,  as  then  established  in 
the  Thebais,  under  the  immediate  direction  of  "an  an- 
gel sent  from  heaven,"  for  this  purpose. 

But  the  reader  who  would  give  the  ancient  asceticism 
the  higliest  possible  advantage,  will  take  his  idea  of  it 
from  Basil.  Tliis  fatlicr's  ascetic  writings  do  not  occu- 
py much  space,  and  they  should  be  read  by  those  who  are 
now  told  that  the  monastic  system  of  the  ancient  church 
was  wise,  holy,  rational,  and  Christian-like.  These 
compositions  are — some  of  his  epistles,  as  those  to  Na- 
zianzen,  and  to  Amphilochius:  the  treatises — on  virginity, 
and  on  abdication  of  the  world,  and  spiritual  perfection. 
By  the  way,  why  should  not  this  treatise  find  a  place 
among  "selections"  from  the  fathers?  Let  us  have  it 
faithfully  rendered,  and  wiljiout  retrenchment.  Basil 
says  to  his  disciple — a  5'oung  monk — "  Hast  thou  left 
thy  cell?  Thou  hast  left  there  thy  virtue."  What  sort 
of  virtue  is  tiiat  which  evaporates  the  moment  it  is  ex- 
posed to  daylight?  or  what  is  the  whole  meaning  of  the 
impassioned  advice — "  Shun  the  society  of  those  of  thine 
own  age;  Yea,  flee  from  it  as  from  a  burning  flame?" 
How  few  then  are  the  steps  that  lead  from  the  doctrine 
of  angelic  virginity,  to  the  lowest  depths!  First  comes 
celibacy,  imposed  upon  youths  of  ardent  temperament — 
then,  by  necessity,  the  stern  separation  of  the  sexes; 
and  next — what?  we  may  learn  from  Basil!  It  is  not 
without  vehement  emotions  of  disgust  and  indignation 
that  one  sees  this  ancient  and  "worst  device  of  the  devil 
set  a  going  again,  after  such  proofs  of  its  true  quality. 
Basil's  "  Monastic  Institutions,"  and  "  Rules,"  longer 
and  shorter,  imbody  all  points  of  the  theory  and  prac- 
tice of  the  ascetic  life;  and  whoever  wishes  to   know 


ADDITIONAL  REFERENCES  AND  CITATIONS.  553 

what  it  was,  will  read  these  throughout.  Compelled  to 
forego  the  ample  citations  I  had  intended,  I  will  point 
to  a  few  expressions  only,  as  they  present  themselves. 
Ad  Amphiloc.  2.  Basil  decides  that  girls  should  not 
be  allowed  to  profess  before  their  sixteenth,  or  seven- 
teenth years.  An}''  irregularity  fallen  into  by  those 
who  had  voluntarily  devoted  themselves  at  this  mature 
age,  was  to  be  punished  with  "  inexorable  severity!" 
He  enjoins  also  that  when  parents  or  brothers,  or,  as 
sometimes  happened,  distant  relatives,  brought  girls  to 
the  convent,  from  interested  motives,  the  consent  of  the 
victim  should  be  ascertained!  The  Monast.  Constit. 
commence  by  recommending  a  total  surrender  of  the 
soul  and  body  to  God,  including  (cap.  xx.)  the  renun- 
ciation of  every  tie  of  kindred:  "  it  is  the  devil's  craft," 
says  Basil,  "  to  keep  alive  in  the  mind  of  the  monk  a 
recollection  of  his  parents  and  natural  relatives,  so  as 
that,  under  colour  of  rendering  them  some  aid,  he  may 
be  drawn  aside  from  his  heavenly  course!"  Let  us  now 
compare  theory  with  facts.  We  hear  Basil  (cap.  iii.) 
strictly  forbidding,  except  in  cases  of  the  most  extreme 
necessity,  any  sort  of  intercourse  with  women.  At 
the  same  moment  the  monks,  generally,  according  to 
Jerome  and  Chrysostom,  were  maintaining  as  many 
girls  about  them  as  their  means  would  allow  !  Pa- 
chomius  forbids  a  monk  to  secrete  any  thing  in  his 
cell,  not  even  an  apple;  and  Basil  insists,  again  and 
again,  that  his  monks  are  to  renounce  every  atom  of  pri- 
vate property,  as  cap.  xviii.;  but  Jerome  tells  us  that 
the  monks  about  him  were  gathering  wealth  within  their 
ragged  sleeves.  To  Basil's  rule  that  a  monk  should 
cease  to  care  for  his  relatives,  some,  he  tells  us,  object- 
ed the  apostle's  declaration — "If  a  man  provide  not  for 


554  ADDITIONAL  REFERENCES  AND  CITATIONS. 

his  own,"  &c.  Yes,  but  Paul  addressed  this  to  the 
livings  not  to  the  dead;  but  a  genuine  monk  is  virtually- 
dead  to  the  world,  although  breathing  the  upper  air;  and 
as  such,  he  is  exempt  from  every  secular  obligation! 
cap.  XX.  "  as  dead  thou  art  free  from  all  contributions 
for  the  benefit  of  thy  natural  relatives;  and,  as  utterly  a 
pauper,  thou  hast  nothing  which  thou  canst  bestow."  Is 
not  this  nearly  the  same  as  the  "  corban"  of  the  phari- 
sees?  Ill  his  second  discourse,  Conslit.  Monast.,  Basil 
insists  upon  the  greater  severity  needful  in  the  govern- 
ment of  convents,  and  imposes  restrictions  which  one 
would  imagine  must  have  secured  a  degree  of  decorum. 
How  far  these  rules  were  regarded,  we  may  best  learn 
from  Chrysostom.  I  must  cut  short  these  references, 
only  taking  the  liberty  to  recommend  those  who  may  now 
be  carrying  the  "  Ilymni  Ecclesiac"  in  their  pockets,  or 
in  their  bosoms,  to  look  into  the  history  of  monkery, 
from  the  Nicene  age,  onward,  before  they  allow  them- 
selves to  speak  of  it  as  a  heaven-born  institution. 


THE  END. 


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